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An explosive sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a female TV personality against a veteran male news anchor is roiling Bloomberg, the company owned by former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In a lawsuit obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, Abigail Doolittle, an on-air news reporter at Bloomberg Television since 2016, is claiming she was repeatedly sexually harassed for four years by news anchor Mark Crumpton who has been at the company for three decades.
Insiders are debating whether it is a case of the latest MeToo moment at Bloomberg – which has wrestled with complaints from women in the male-dominated company in the past and now has a new multi-year harassment claim on its hands.
Or is it a case of a ‘newsroom Karen’ in which an attractive young white news woman is leveling complaints without merit against a veteran black news anchor.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) took no action after Doolittle’s initial complaints to the federal agency last year, but in July signed off on the case and gave Doolittle her ‘notice of right to sue’ on her own in federal court.
Now it may ultimately be up to a jury to decide if it goes to trial.
Reporter Abigail Doolittle, 49, claims she has been sexually harassed for four years by veteran news anchor Mark Crumpton, 62. Doolittle has been an on-air news reporter at Bloomberg Television since 2016 and Crumpton has been with the company for 30 years
‘We took her claims seriously, thoroughly investigated them and we found zero evidence to support them,’ said a Bloomberg spokesman. Pictured: The world headquarters of Bloomberg LP in New York City
‘We took her claims seriously, thoroughly investigated them and we found zero evidence to support them,’ said Bloomberg L.P. spokesman Ty Trippet.
Doolittle, 49, remains an on-air news anchor at Bloomberg TV.
‘Through our investigation of more recent complaints by her, we still found zero evidence to support her claims,’ said Trippet.
Bloomberg is owned by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg
‘Based on what we have reviewed, however, we have serious concerns that she may in fact be unfairly targeting her colleague.’
Crumpton is also denying the accusations. His lawyer Anna Aguilar told DailyMail.com the accusations are ‘baseless’.
‘We seriously question what’s motivating this lawsuit,’ Aguilar added.
‘Mark looks forward to vindicating his good name and reputation and continuing in the role that he loves.’
The suit Doolittle filed in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan in late October names both Crumpton, 62, and the company as defendants and claims that the company failed to protect her after she brought complaints to their attention over many months from late 2020 to mid-2021.
In the most explosive claim, Doolittle’s suit cites an alleged ‘masturbation incident’ during a live broadcast she was doing on December 1, 2020.
‘Moments into the broadcast Crumpton stared directly at [Doolittle] while masturbating his genitals over his pants,’ according to the suit.
But Bloomberg said her story changed over time and that initially, according to filings that the company made with the EEOC in response to a complaint filed with the federal agency last year, she said only that ‘Crumpton was doing something with his tie around his crotch area while she was on air.’
And in June, Bloomberg said when she spoke of the December incident to company HR officials she said only that she could see Crumpton ‘in the corner of her eye’ and she ‘wasn’t positive what he was doing’ but thought he was doing something ‘around the crotch area.’
In the lawsuit, she claimed Crumpton was in her ‘direct line of sight.’
She said it was part of a series of sexual harassment incidents that stretched back to at least 2018, when she said Crumpton repeatedly asked her to accompany him on a tropical vacation. She says she turned him down repeatedly.
‘Life would be a lot better if you and I were on a beach in the Caribbean together with a cocktail,’ the suit claims Crumpton said to Doolittle several times.
The lawsuit also claims she felt harassed when Crumpton on numerous occasions throughout 2019 told her her ‘earrings looked gorgeous.’
Doolittle’s suit asserts that other female workers were subject to harassment. She claims that in December 2019, when San Francisco anchor Emily Chang was on air during a live segment, Crumpton ‘seductively stared’ at Chang on screen and ‘made sexually suggestive grunting noise.’
She also claims he started calling co-workers ‘c**k suckers’ and ‘sons of b*****s’ and ‘blatantly “cat-calling” other female employees, making statements such as “Well, isn’t she fine,” in open space and in front of other employees, as they walked by’.
The company said it looked into all the complaints but is not buying any of them.
‘Beginning in December 2020, Doolittle made internal complaints about her co-worker Mark Crumpton,’ the company said in a filing with the EEOC. ‘On each occasion she did so, Bloomberg’s employee relations team thoroughly investigated her allegations and found no basis for them.’
‘As for the most startling allegation in the suit – that Crumpton ‘masturbate[d] his genitals over his pants’ in her presence on a live television set – she never told Bloomberg’s investigators that he engaged in any such behavior.’
Doolittle’s suit said that she initially complained to head of terminals and marketing Daniel Curtis immediately after that December 2020 incident that Crumpton was making her feel ‘uncomfortable’ and that she did not want to appear on air or have him on set with her.
Doolittle’s suit acknowledges she did not mention an alleged ‘masturbation incident’ in those terms at that time because she claims she ‘feared retaliation based on how other female media figures were treated after reporting harassment to their employers.’
And she further claims in the suit that ‘Curtis was aware of Crumpton’s ‘sexually inappropriate behavior.’
Despite that, the suit claims she again found herself back on air with Crumpton the following day.
Curtis, who is still with Bloomberg, did not respond to calls. In EEOC filings by Bloomberg, however, the company defended his action.
Doolittle said only that she was ‘uncomfortable’ with Crumpton, the company said and noted that Curtis responded to her uneasiness by changing the schedules so that her ‘Market Hits’ segment and Crumpton’s ‘First Word’ segment were in different time frames to create more time between the segments when they both might overlap in the newsroom.
Doolittle claims in the suit that the harassment stretched back to at least 2018, when she said Crumpton repeatedly asked her to accompany him on a tropical vacation. She says she turned him down repeatedly
After management took steps so they no longer appeared on air together, the suit claims that Crumpton repeatedly ‘lingered’ near Doolittle’s desk and near the set when she was on air
The suit says said that Doolittle then voiced her complaint to an executive producer, Emily Haas-Godsil, who she said then spoke directly to Crumpton.
But she claims that Crumpton, upon learning she had complained, retaliated further against her and in one case ‘charged the set’ while she was on air and sat down near her.
Haas-Godsil left the company in July 2021 to start her own company, according to her Linkedin profile and did not returned messages from DailyMail.com.
While they no longer appeared on air together, the suit claims that Crumpton repeatedly ‘lingered’ near Doolittle’s desk and near the set when she was on air.
The company, however, said it appears that Crumpton was just going about his normal work duties, and not interacting with Doolittle.
The company said that after Doolittle put off a number of conferences with HR representatives to hear her complaints, but finally spoke of Crumpton’s alleged actions in a meeting with an HR representative on July 2, 2021 – some seven months after the alleged ‘masturbation incident.’
That got her another meeting with employee relations manager Katharine Polis, who asked what action she wanted the company to take and if it included firing Crumpton.
Doolittle’s suit said that she complained to executive producer, Emily Haas-Godsil and to head of terminals and marketing Daniel Curtis
After promising to investigate, the suit claims that Doolittle got an email from Polis on July 21 which said after further investigation the company ‘denied any wrongdoing on the part of Crumpton.’
Doolittle claims she was advised by Polis to ‘use her voice against [Crumpton] to empower herself.’
Polis, who left Bloomberg last month for a new HR job, did not returned calls seeking comment.
The company said in an answer to an EEOC complaint filed by Doolittle, that nobody else on the set reported that Crumpton had acted inappropriately that day when Doolittle claims that a masturbation incident took place.
The company also denied it cut her air time because of the complaints and said only one segment was moved while it searched for a new sponsor.
‘In each instance, the alleged retaliatory behaviors (1) did not constitute an adverse employment action and (2) were driven by legitimate business reasons having nothing to do with Doolittle,’ the company said.
Doolittle did not respond to calls for comment.
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