[lbo-talk] life @ WBAI

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Nov 9 05:13:56 PST 2007


[I have no idea if any of this is true. A guy who snorts once a week is hardly a cokehead, and no one around the station that I know has seen him drunk. But you rarely see this guy around the station - he does little visible work and is frequently out of the office. And we just had another failed fundraiser - it came in 10% short of its goal despite being extended from an already-long 21 days to something like 25. It seems that the Post headline writers don't know how to spell "harass."]

New York Post - November 6, 2007 <http://www.nypost.com/seven/11062007/news/regionalnews/ wbai_gm_sex_harras_suit_35314.htm>

WBAI GM SEX-HARRAS SUIT By STEFANIE COHEN

Famed lefty radio station WBAI is run by an alcoholic, coke-snorting general manager who coerced a popular female deejay into having sex with him, according to an explosive sex-harass suit.

In stinging, sensational papers filed in Brooklyn federal court, "Sister From Another Planet" deejay Andrea Clarke charges that the harassment she suffered at the hands of her lothario boss, interim GM Robert Scott Adams, began at their first meeting last fall.

Clarke says Adams told her she turned him on and that he was not "usually a breast man but loved hers."

The deejay's suit cites other embarrassing tidbits about the alleged Don Juan station honcho, including that he had an erotic blog titled "Dr. Booty Juice" and pens risque short stories, one of which is in the anthology "Chocolate Flava" by Zane.

"There is something erotic about just the thought of meeting some unknown person for the first time and getting so turned on that you are completely willing to risk compromising your traditional ideas of acquaintance, courtship, and ethics in order to just go ahead and get taboo love," Adams writes at the beginning of one tale, "Where Strangers Meet."

Clarke also claims that Adams is an alcoholic with a "once-a-week" cocaine habit.

Clarke said her problems with her boss began after he was hired by the station in October 2006. She was deejaying at the time and working part-time processing listeners' complaints.

Clarke, who deejays the soul and reggae show "Sister from Another Planet" on Friday nights, insists that she flatly rejected her boss's lecherous advances.

But the divorced honcho wouldn't take no for an answer, she said.

At one point, Clarke said, Adams told her he had the power to change programming at the station and began ticking off the names of employees he planned to fire.

He assured Clarke she was not among those to be let go and even offered to give her employee benefits she was not currently entitled to, Clarke claims.

Clarke said that the next month, Adams told her to meet him in a South Street Seaport hotel room. "Fearing dismissal from her employment" if she didn't, Clarke said, she went.

When she arrived, she said, Adams "entrapped her" and "initiated oral and coital sexual activity with her."

Nevertheless, two weeks later, Clarke allowed Adams to stay at her apartment while he looked for a place of his own.

She said she told him she wasn't interested in him romantically.

Four days later, Clarke was then told that her hours and pay at the station were to be cut in half.

Adams, reached at his office yesterday, flatly denied the charges, stating: "All that's totally untrue."

Clarke still hosts her radio program but works in a store during the day.

Her suit also targets WBAI and its owner, the Pacifica Foundation, claiming they were aware of Adams' alleged sordid reputation when they hired him.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list