IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Cain accuser got a year's salary in severance pay

The National Restaurant Association gave $35,000 to a female staff member after an encounter with Herman Cain, people with knowledge of the payment said.
Get more newsLiveon
/ Source: The New York Times

The National Restaurant Association gave $35,000 — a year’s salary — in severance pay to a female staff member in the late 1990s after an encounter with Herman Cain, its chief executive at the time, made her uncomfortable working there, three people with direct knowledge of the payment said on Tuesday.

The woman was one of two whose accusations of sexual harassment by Mr. Cain, now a Republican candidate for president, led to paid severance agreements during his 1996-99 tenure as the association’s chief. Disclosure of the cases has rocked Mr. Cain’s campaign just as he was surging in polls.

Further challenging Mr. Cain, a lawyer for the second woman called on the restaurant association to release her from a confidentiality agreement signed as part of her settlement, raising the prospect that she could publicly dispute Mr. Cain’s account of what happened. The lawyer said the confidentiality agreement had left her unable to respond to Mr. Cain’s dismissal of the complaints against him as a “witch hunt” or to his denials of any inappropriate behavior toward the women.

“He’s basically saying: ‘I never harassed anyone. These claims have no merit,’ ” said the lawyer, Joel P. Bennett of Washington, who represented the woman in her initial agreement. “And I’m sure my client would have a comeback to that.”

The precise nature of the encounters between Mr. Cain and the two women remained murky. He has said over the past two days that he joked with one of the women about her height, but he has not addressed what happened with the first woman — the one who received the $35,000 payment, according to the people who knew of it — or even acknowledged there was an incident with her. Her friends and colleagues said she had told them at the time that she was upset about the situation.

The developments put new pressure on Mr. Cain’s campaign, as his own accounts evolved over a second day on Tuesday and new details raised questions over exactly what had taken place at the association. And his shifting answers continued to raise questions about the capabilities of a campaign that seasoned party hands still view with skepticism.

Asked during an interview on the Fox News Channel on Tuesday night whether he would ask the association to comply with Mr. Bennett’s request, Mr. Cain said, “I can’t give you a definitive answer on that until we consult with our attorneys.”

He added that there could be “legal implications” if the women were released from confidentiality agreements, though he did not say what those implications might be.

A spokeswoman for the restaurant association, Sue Hensley, said that Mr. Bennett “has not been in contact with the association,” and that “if we are contacted by Mr. Bennett, we will respond as appropriate.”

First Read: GOP candidates mum on Cain

She did not address questions about the details of the $35,000 severance arrangement with the other woman. A spokesman for Mr. Cain, J.D. Gordon, also declined to discuss the details of the arrangement.

Asked about the encounter that had left the woman uncomfortable working with Mr. Cain, according to friends and former colleagues, Mr. Gordon said, “Mr. Cain has already explained the situation in some detail in numerous public appearances.”

Four people with contemporaneous knowledge of the incident said the encounter had taken place in the context of a work outing during which there was heavy drinking, a hallmark, they said, of outings with an organization that represents the hospitality industry. They spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid being publicly drawn into the dispute, and declined to provide details of the encounter, saying they did not want to violate the privacy of the woman.

Two of them said that other factors had been involved in her severance, and that other, less-loaded issues had been making her unhappy at the association. But they said the encounter with Mr. Cain had added an emotional charge, and contributed to the size of her payment. One former colleague familiar with the details said such a severance was not common, especially for an employee with the woman’s years at the association and her pay grade.

The situation with the other woman appeared to be more in keeping with a standard settlement related to harassment allegations, though she never filed suit in a case that, one person familiar with her accusations said, included “more than one” alleged incident that made her feel uncomfortable.

Mr. Cain has at times seemed to conflate the situations with the two women. Appearing to speak about the terms of the formal settlement with Mr. Bennett’s client on Monday, he said she had received perhaps three months of severance — this after at first saying he knew of no severance.

First Read: Cain's online fundraising gets a boost

On Tuesday, he said in an interview with “CNN Headline News” that it was “in the vicinity of three to six months.”

Asked on Fox News Channel on Tuesday night why his story kept changing Mr. Cain said “when I first heard the word settlement I thought ‘legal settlement.’ My recollection later was that was an agreement.”

That led one of his interviewers, the conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer, to ask whether he was being “Clintonian” in his answer, a nod to Mr. Clinton’s initial statements that he did not have sexual relations with the intern Monica Lewinsky. “Well, it wasn’t intended to be Clintonian,” Mr. Cain said. “It was simply using the word agreement.”

In speaking about the confidential agreement, Mr. Bennett said that he indeed considered it to be a form of settlement agreement.

A relative of one of the women said Tuesday evening: “This is not something we asked for. This is not something we brought on.”

As Mr. Cain took question after question on Fox, his campaign sought to project a business-as-usual aura on Tuesday and released a list of 15 co-chairmen of his campaign effort in Florida. He did not join five of his Republican rivals at a candidate forum in Iowa, where Gov. Terry Branstad said voters would wait for facts to be revealed before reaching a conclusion.

“Iowans are pretty fair-minded people," Mr. Branstad said.

Mr. Cain also was set to keep his pre-scheduled dinner with several Republican senators at a Washington steakhouse near the White House.

It remained an open question how Mr. Cain would weather the political fallout from the allegations. His rivals for the Republican presidential nomination neither rallied to his defense or offered a comment on the matter.

But several prominent conservatives stepped forward with supportive words for Mr. Cain, whose campaign said he had experienced a boost in fundraising.

“As I watch this witch hunt of Herman Cain,” Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program Tuesday, “I’m reminded once again that whether they can do it or no, the media clearly believe that they can make or destroy any political candidate they choose.”

Mr. Cain’s rising appeal is rooted, in part, by his unconventional style and the fact that he is not seen as a typical politician. The sexual harassment allegations are providing the biggest test yet to his preparedness for office and his ability to react to a crisis.

Mr. Cain also kept a pre-scheduled dinner appointment with a small group of Republican senators at a Washington steakhouse near the White House. He arrived through a parking garage and entered a private room in the basement of Bobby Van’s, which allowed him to bypass a cluster of reporters who gathered outside.

Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny reported from Washington, and Mike McIntire from New York.

This story, "Cain accuser got a year's salary in severance pay," originally appeared in the New York Times.