Posted on 10/24/2004 2:52:44 PM PDT by Dr. Scarpetta
On Sept. 29, a messenger hand delivered a six-paragraph letter to the office of Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of News Corp., the parent company of Fox News.
The missive, with carbon copies going to Fox News Channel President Roger Ailes and two other top News Corp. executives, spoke in obtuse but ominous tones.
Producer Andrea Mackris, 33, was identified simply as "a young woman employee of Fox." Bill O'Reilly, 55, was identified simply as "one of Fox's most prominent on-air personalities."
Typed on the letterhead of Mackris attorney Benedict Morelli, the correspondence accused the cable TV star of "constant and relentless sexual harassment" as well as "constant sexual innuendo and attempts at telephone sex."
The letter, characterized by one Fox attorney as "a shot across the bow," instantly caught the attention of News Corp. bigwigs.
For the time being at least, they circled the wagons around their marquee talk-show host. Thus, an explosive phone sex scandal was born.
Over the course of the next two weeks, in-house attorneys for Fox and News Corp. met six times with Morelli in his offices at 950 Third Ave.
Mackris, a former White House intern during the first Bush presidency, attended one of the sessions, but declined to answer any questions about any supposed emotional harm she had suffered.
There also were no less than five phone conversations, said attorney Ronald Green, who joined the Fox legal team just prior to the final meeting.
Green told the Daily News that Mackris actually first sought $600 million, not the widely reported $60 million.
He said that at one of the meetings, Morelli showed the Fox/News Corp. in-house lawyers a draft of a six-count complaint, with each count seeking $100 million.
At one point, Green continued, Morelli said his client would be willing to accept "10 cents on the dollar, but nothing less." The Fox attorney also quoted Morelli as warning that "time was of the essence."
On the evening of Oct. 12, Green and one of the Fox in-house attorneys went to Morelli's office for a status meeting.
According to Green's version, Morelli gave the Fox camp an ultimatum - "If you don't resolve this case for the $60 million tonight, we are going to go public with this tomorrow."
"They would not come down from $60 million," Green said. "When [Morelli] was told that this could destroy someone's life, bring incredible, incalculable pain to someone's children, you know what his response was? 'Those children are not my problem.'"
Green departed and reported back to his clients. "A decision was made that this was indeed absolute extortion," he said.
Against the prospect of widespread dissemination of sexually explicit tapes of the married father of two talking about three-way sex and his "amazing" physical endowment," a consensus decision was made to take the offensive.
The next morning, Oct. 13, "at 9:01 a.m.," Green filed an extortion complaint against Mackris and Morelli in state court on Long Island, where the O'Reilly family resides.
The Fox legal team also obtained a show-cause order requiring that Mackris explain why she shouldn't be required to immediately turn over tapes of any phone sex conversations.
Hours later, Morelli and Mackris filed a sexual harassment complaint in Manhattan, complete with what appeared to be verbatim excerpts of her conversations with O'Reilly, her boss. The Mackris suit was dated Sept. 28.
The road kill from this sexually charged firestorm has not been pretty.
Both sides have used the news media, directly and through sources and leaks, to ratchet up their respective positions.
Most troubling to O'Reilly's bosses at the "fair and balanced" network were the comments in the Mackris lawsuit attributed to their prized employee - from his offers to shower with her, and "take that little loofah thing and kinda soap up your back," to his explicit desires regarding oral sex, the use of vibrators and a steamy Caribbean vacation.
Oddly, in the O'Reilly/Fox suit, attorneys redacted the word "sexual" four times and the words "telephone sex" from Exhibit C, the Sept. 29 letter. Did they really think Mackris and Morelli weren't going to cover that ground in their court papers?
In a bit of understatement, Green told The News: "An effort was being made to avoid sensationalism, so the papers filed with the public record deleted references to sexual allegations."
As soon as the Mackris side held a news conference, the Fox side refiled its papers to include a complete version of the letter, said Green. "There was nothing else to protect by way of privacy."
That meant the gloves also were off regarding Mackris.
Green told The News that when Mackris was a White House intern she gave herself the nickname "Andrea Mattress."
"It speaks volumes to what was going on then," said Green, who characterized the Mackris lawsuit as "a shakedown" and "an extortion case masquerading as something else."
He went on to assert that Mackris is "insolvent - that her liabilities exceed her assets, that's how broke she is." The attorney also alleged that Mackris and Morelli - who have denied all of the O'Reilly camp's personal accusations - were active Democrats out to bash the conservative cable operation.
Green also alleged that Mackris had been writing a book "intended to bring Bill O'Reilly down," had consulted with Al Franken and had romantic crushes on three men - Franken, a former boss at CNN and O'Reilly.
When all is said and done, though, it is the words purportedly spoken by O'Reilly, especially if the conversations were tape recorded, that may rule the day, especially in the court of public opinion.
Mackris told The News last week that O'Reilly has "a lot to answer for, to his wife and to his God."
He ultimately also may have "a lot to answer for" to Fox, even though his ratings are up since the scandal broke. Sources say Fox has made it clear that any payments to Mackris would come solely from O'Reilly.
Early last week, the salvos continued. The Mackris side filed additional claims of harassment. With any tapes still under wraps, O'Reilly remains on the air.
But the former school teacher has cancelled several media appearances to promote his new advice book, "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids."
The book contains a chapter on sex: "Here's a big word for today: dehumanization. ... Guys, if you exploit a girl, it will come back to get you. That's called 'karma.' "
By week's end the vicious chatter had suddenly abated; sources confirmed Friday that settlement talks had convened.
The motive for Fox and O'Reilly to settle was obvious - the last thing the network needed was for its cable competitors to repeatedly play audiotapes of its now tarnished star talking dirty with a female subordinate.
The former school teacher has cancelled several media appearances to promote his new advice book, "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids."
The book contains a chapter on sex: "Here's a big word for today: dehumanization. ... Guys, if you exploit a girl, it will come back to get you. That's called 'karma.' "
o is a pervert
What is it with WH interns.....
As I was channel surfing yesterday, I caught VH1 spoofing O'Reilly. They actually had a clip of O'Reilly talking to this girl at work in the past. He was calling her "Makris."
Okaaaaaay....
What? Does he like boys? Animals?
It's a sad situation. O'Reilly has a large ego and that is what is taking him down in this case. I feel sorry for his wife and children. Mackris knew what she was doing and she is going to make some money off of this but I doubt she will have a normal life after this. Is the money really worth it? I guess for her it is.
I can't begin to imagine the hurt, pain, anger, and embarrassment that Mrs. O'Reilly is feeling! Field dressing Mr. O'Reilly would be my suggestion.
The O'Reilly Factor redux. He spends a tremendous amount of time being smug about his "conquests."
You know that it takes two people to have a conversation. The fact that Mackris had a book about O'Reilly in the works, prior to her return to FOX, makes her position very shakey.
I have not yet seen a picture of Mrs. O'Reilly. Is she the same age as Makris?
I'm not certain about her age. She recently had a child, though.
It also makes him stupid, as he called himself on his radio show the other day.
There may or may not be tapes, but did you ever listen to O'Reilly's radio show? He sexually harassed his co-host on the air.
Frankly, I have never been impressed with O'Reilly's intelligence. His problem is that his ego is larger than his IQ.
Good counsel. I absolutely dislike O'Reilly, but I too will await more facts.
You know, the more I think about this, the more I suspect that a woman who is tough enough to loudly sue Fox News and O'Reilly is tough enough to put up with some sexual banter without damage to her psyche.
Her psyche isn't damaged. She just wants some of O'Reilly's big bucks, and he's probably going to give her some if she has the tapes.
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