Less than a page of the complaint lodged by a top CNBC journalist that eventually led to the abrupt dismissal of NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell last month detailed instances of his alleged pattern of sexual harassment, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times.
Instead, the vast majority of the complaint, which reportedly spans over a dozen pages, focuses on the broader toxic workplace culture fostered by network leadership.
In one case, Hadley Gamble details an incident where a manager called her what the Times characterized as “a vulgar epithet for women” in front of at least two of her colleagues. That epithet began “with the letter ‘c,’” according to earlier reporting on Tuesday by Axios, which attributed the slur to former CNBC vice president and international managing editor Patrick Allen. Allen departed the network earlier this year.
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The complaint also names John Casey, the president and managing director of CNBC International, and accuses him of complicity as bullying and discrimination was allowed to thrive at the network under his watch. At one point, according to the Times, Casey warned Gamble that she had a behavioral problem, accusing her of bullying other journalists. She denied these claims in her complaint.
Gamble moved to file the complaint after the network opted not to renew her contract this year. Her complaint claims that Casey used the allegations of bullying as a reason not to retain her, alleging that such a justification would not have been deployed against a male journalist, according to the Times.
A spokesperson for Comcast, NBCU’s parent company, said Tuesday that the investigation into Gamble’s complaint remained ongoing, more than a week after the company made the news of Shell’s departure public
In an April 23 statement, it was announced that Comcast and Shell had “agreed to mutually part ways,” with Shell saying in his own statement that he had had “an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the company.”
He did not identify Gamble, whose name was reported by Deadline just hours later. Her lawyer subsequently approached NBC News to confirm that Gamble had filed claims of sexual harassment against Shell, calling it “very disappointing” that her privacy had been violated.
In the most detailed report of Gamble’s allegations against Shell yet, the Times reported Tuesday that she claimed he had pressured her for sex over a period of years, beginning when she was a junior producer and he was head of NBC International. After resisting his advances initially, Gamble eventually began a sexual relationship with Shell after realizing that her career would suffer otherwise, the complaint says.
Two people close to the situation told the newspaper that Shell chased Gamble over text and email for years, with Gamble turning those messages over to company investigators.
Comcast said last week that Shell was being fired for cause, and would not be paid severance. The company said that the “estimated fair value” of his forfeited or canceled stock options totaled $43.3 million.
