NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack has been under fire for his handling of sexual-misconduct allegations at the network, including one against his ex-friend and former star anchor, Matt Lauer. But years earlier at another company, Lack protected a male employee who sexually harassed multiple women, sources tell The Daily Beast.
Lack was chairman and CEO of Sony BMG Music Entertainment in 2004, when, according to former high-level Sony executives, the company discovered that a music executive named Charlie Walk had sent sexual messages via company email to female employees, including graphic pornogoraphy.
Soon after finding the messages, executives said, they repeatedly implored Lack to address Walks sexual harassment. Each time, Lack declined to act.
I kept telling him: You must do something about this. Its imperative, one of the executives said. Andy would turn a blind eye to making difficult decisions.
An NBC spokesperson denied the allegation, and a spokesperson for Sony Music responded: No comment.
After Lack was confronted with evidence of Walks misconduct, Walk allegedly harassed several Sony female employees, which he categorically denies. (They first went public with their allegations in Rolling Stone this year.) Kate Harold, for one, said Walk in 2006 forcibly kissed her and rubbed his penis through clothing against her during a business dinner. Pam Kaye, who was a promotional manager working under Walk at Columbia Records, said he tried to put his hands down her pants while they were in a car together in 2004.
Andy Lack is part of the problem if he knew, Kaye told The Daily Beast.
While Lack was indecisive at Sony when faced with damaging allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace, he has been hostile to those same type of allegations at NBC, according to multiple current and former employees who spoke to The Daily Beast in recent weeks.
Ari Wilkenfeld, the attorney for the NBC News employee who first accused Lauer of what NBCUniversal termed as "inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace," told The Daily Beast that Lack effectively outed his client, despite a pledge to keep her identity confidential.
NBCUniversal and Mr. Lacks actions, which I believe were deliberate, have done nothing short of destroying my clients life, said Wilkenfeld.
Lack has also been directly blamed for NBC News decision to stop working on former MSNBC host Ronan Farrows investigation of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinsteina story that went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. One of the men tasked with reviewing Farrows reportinga key executive under Lackwas himself an accused sexual harasser, multiple sources told The Daily Beast. Under Lacks tenure, NBCUniversal paid the accuser nearly $1 million for her silence. ... Tristan Coopersmith, a former research director who worked at Columbia Records in 2004, told The Daily Beast that Walk on several occasions sent her explicit messages and photographs at work. Joy Camacho, then a promotions assistant at the company, said that while she could not recall him sending her porn, in the four years she worked at Columbia Records, Walk on at least five occasions showed her explicit images on his work computer.
The porn was nasty stuff. It was very graphic and totally inappropriate to send on company email, especially to women, one former executive said.
Then the executive said they took the problem to Lack in his office at Sony Music headquarters in New York and told him, You got to sort it out. You gotta get in front of it.
Andy said Leave it with me, the executive said. Andy didnt do anything.
The executive said he addressed the Walk situation in subsequent conversations with Lack to no avail....