Bill O’Reilly’s spin zone tales continued

(Part One of this article can be found here.)

O’Reilly has been quick to attack those over the years he believed were morally wrong. Whether it was Bill Clinton, Janet Jackson, R. Kelly, Beyoncé and others, there was O’Reilly standing up for morality, religion and all else that is good.

On that one can say to some degree that Bill O’Reilly is a hypocrite if you believe what was alleged by a female Fox employee.

On October 13, 2004, Andrea Mackris, who worked as a producer on The Factor and was dependent on O’Reilly for her job, filed a suit in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, charging Bill O’Reilly with sexual harassment.

After hearing of the lawsuit, O’Reilly said at the time it was all lies and called it a shakedown for money, said he would fight it to the end with no settlement and would let the courts decide the matter.

O’Reilly had one big problem though. Among Andrea Mackris’ basis for the sexual harassment lawsuit, there were, allegedly, recorded sexually explicit telephone calls with O’Reilly talking to her about masturbation, vibrators, group sex and other sexual fantasies.

After rumors that Mackris recorded his phone calls, less than two weeks after the filing of the lawsuit on October 28, 2004, O’Reilly who had said he would never settle, settled the case with Mackris. It was rumored that he paid Mackris close to $10 million, to get the tapes and shut her up.

Was this an instance of a morally corrupt man, a hypocrite with power and money, passing himself off to his viewers as something he was not and influencing the outcome of what should have been his public demise, with money? I leave that for you to decide.

And where was the condemnation from O’Reilly’s colleagues at the time, especially all the female employees at Fox, and other networks, some of whom have gone after and reported on other males for similar conduct. They remained mute on the subject.

The story then disappeared from the mainstream media, never to be spoken about again. Why was that?

One would have to ask why O’Reilly wasn’t fired from the Fox News Channel. Sexual harassment is a serious issue specifically in the corporate world. If anyone thinks that someone would give up that kind of money for an accusation that was baseless and false, then my friend you have just entered the Spin Zone.

We have seen this type of tactic used in the past by those with money and power. If you read my articles titled, “Did Sylvester Stallone molest his half-sister” and “Sylvester Stallone hush money leaves unanswered questions” you can see the similarities.

Pay off your accuser as fast as you can so they will shut up, get the evidence they have against you, have the accuser sign a non-disclosure agreement and the story will disappear and you can move on with your fame and fortune. You have just succeeded in shielding yourself from any further scrutiny and protecting your public image.

Reading through the Verified Complaint, No. 04114558, filed with the New York County Clerk’s Office on October 13, 2004 one could see why O’Reilly wanted to act fast.

Excerpts from that complaint, which is sexually explicit are as follows:

Throughout her employment on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Plaintiff Andrea Mackris has been subjected to the mercurial and unpredictable mood swings of her boss, Defendant “Bill O’Reilly,” a personality who can be paternal and engaging at one instant, tyrannical and menacing the next.

… Suddenly, without provocation or warning, O’Reilly said to Mackris: “And just use your vibrator to blow off steam.” When Plaintiff reddened, O’Reilly asked lewdly: “What, you’ve got a vibrator, don’t you? Every girl does.” When Plaintiff responded indignantly, “No, and no, they don’t. Does your wife?” Defendant replied: “Yes, in fact she does. She’d kill me if she knew I was telling you!” Plaintiff was repulsed.

… O’Reilly proceeded, without solicitation or invite, to inform Mackris that he had advised another woman to purchase a vibrator, and had taught that woman how to masturbate while telling her sexual stories over the telephone. O’Reilly told Mackris she knew the woman from FOX. O’Reilly then boasted that the woman had her first orgasm via masturbation as he spoke to her on the telephone.

When Plaintiff responded that she never engaged in phone sex, O’Reilly professed disbelief, and told her that the sexual stories he told her were all based upon his own experiences, such as when he received a massage in a cabana in Bali and the “little short brown woman” asked to see his penis and was “amazed.” O’Reilly then suggested that he tell Plaintiff the same sexual stories, which he knew she would “just love.”   Shocked and embarrassed, Mackris informed Defendant in no uncertain terms that she was neither experienced in nor interested in gaining experience in telephone sex. Defendant expressed disbelief.

As they left the restaurant next to defendant’s hotel, Mackris thanked her boss for the dinner and raise. O’Reilly responded suggestively: “Stick with me and I’ll take care of you,” winked, and walked into his hotel.

… O’Reilly called Plaintiff on her cell phone. Plaintiff was at dinner with a woman friend from college. Defendant was flirtatious, repeatedly asking Plaintiff what she and her friend were wearing.

… Mackris’ college friend was with her. O’Reilly approached the two and commented: “University of Missouri…Boy, I would’ve had fun with you two” and alluded to having a ménage a trois with Plaintiff and her friend.

… During the course of the dinner, O’Reilly repeatedly propositioned the women, singing the praises of telephone sex, offering to telephone them both, and suggesting that the three of them “go to a hotel together and have the time of [their] lives.” O’Reilly further suggested that the women needed to be trained so they’d be equipped and ready to go when a “real man shows up in your lives,” and offered “lessons.” O’Reilly further suggested they use their sexuality to their advantage so they’d have power over men, otherwise men would have power over them. Plaintiff was extremely embarrassed and protested: “Bill, you’re my boss!”

… O’Reilly, without solicitation or invite, regaled Plaintiff and her friend with stories concerning the loss of his virginity to a girl in a car at JFK, two “really wild” Scandinavian airline stewardesses he had gotten together with, and a “girl” at a sex show in Thailand who had shown him things in a backroom that “blew [his] mind.” Defendant then stated he was going to Italy to meet the Pope, that his pregnant wife was staying at home with his daughter, and implied he was looking forward to some extra-marital dalliances with the “hot” Italian women. Both Plaintiff and her friend were repulsed, but felt powerless to protest strongly since Defendant was Plaintiff’s boss and a powerful man at FOX. Defendant finally stopped after noting: “Mackris can’t handle it.”

Defendant once again raised the specter of telephone sex, repeatedly professing disbelief that Plaintiff had never engaged in telephone sex. O’Reilly repeatedly begged Plaintiff to have telephone sex with him that night. Plaintiff refused.

… O’Reilly once again tried to convince Mackris to engage in telephone sex with him. Plaintiff again adamantly refused, becoming extremely embarrassed and reminding O’Reilly that he was her boss.

O’Reilly bragged that he had telephone sex with other young women.

On or about January 2004. Mackris left Defendants Fox and “The O’Reilly Factor” for a position with CNN.

On or about early April 2004, O’Reilly left a message on Plaintiff’s answering machine at home after her boss at CNN was terminated for sexual harassment, purportedly to determine if anything untoward was directed toward her. O’Reilly suggested they go to dinner to discuss her future, as Plaintiff had previously expressed unhappiness with her position at CNN.

On or about April 2004, O’Reilly telephoned Plaintiff at home. Mackris then told Defendant that she would only have dinner with him if the talk was professional. O’Reilly agreed.

Mackris again told O’Reilly that she would return to work on “The O’Reilly Factor” only if he no longer engaged in inappropriate conduct. Defendant agreed: “Of course, because then you’d be working for me and I’d have power over you, so that couldn’t happen, that wouldn’t be fair.” When Plaintiff reminded Defendant that he had done the same thing to other women who worked on “The O’Reilly Factor,” and that he should be careful or they might tell someone, O’Reilly vehemently threatened with the words to the effect:

If any woman ever breathed a word I’ll make her pay so dearly that she’ll wish she’d never been born. I’ll take her through the mud, bring up things in her life and make her so miserable that she’ll be destroyed. And besides, she wouldn’t be able to afford the lawyers I can or endure it financially as long as I can. And nobody would believe her, it’d be her word against mine and who are they going to believe? Me or some unstable woman making outrageous accusations. They’d see her as some psycho, someone unstable. Besides, I’d never make the mistake of picking unstable crazy girls like that.

During the course of this conversation, Defendant Bill O’Reilly further sternly warned, to the effect:

If you cross Fox News Channel, it’s not just me, it’s [Fox President] Roger Ailes who will go after you. I’m the street guy out front making loud noises about the issues, but Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes and makes things happen so that one day Bam! The person gets what’s coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he’s going to get a knock on his door and life as he’s known it will change forever. That day will happen, trust me.

During the course of this conversation, O’Reilly bizarrely rambled further about Al Franken: “Ailes knows very powerful people and this goes all the way to the top.” Plaintiff queried: “To the top of what?” Defendant responded: “Top of the country. Just look at who’s on the cover of his book [Bush and Cheney], they’re watching him and will be for years. [Al Franken’s] finished, and he’s going to be sorry he ever took Fox News Channel on.” Plaintiff found O’Reilly’s paranoid rambling both strange and alarming.

(My Note: On August 7, 2003 Fox News Channel filed a civil lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Al Franken to stop him from using Fox’s trademark phrase “fair and balanced” in the title of his then-forthcoming book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. The judge denied the motion on August 22, and Fox dropped the suit three days later.)

On or about July 6, 2004 Mackris returned to her position as Associate Producer of “The O’Reilly Factor.”

Throughout July and August 2004, O’Reilly repeatedly reminded Plaintiff that she “owed” him a dinner.

O’Reilly telephoned Mackris at her home after interviewing two porn stars on “The O’Reilly Factor.” Apparently, O’Reilly was “excited” from the show. With little preamble, O’Reilly launched into a vile and degrading monologue about sex.

… he suggested that Mackris purchase a vibrator and name it, and that he had one ‘shaped like a cock with little battery in it” that a woman had given him. It became apparent that Defendant was masturbating as he spoke. After he climaxed, O’Reilly said to Plaintiff: “I appreciate the fun phone call. You can have fun tonight. I’ll appreciate it. I mean it.” Plaintiff felt as if the floor had fallen out from beneath her. She was shocked, frightened and upset. She felt trapped.

… O’Reilly again started talking about sex, and suggested that if he had a hotel room that night he would have invited her up. Defendant further suggested that Mackris purchase a vibrator. When Plaintiff became embarrassed and told him that she was not interested, O’Reilly again suggested: “We should do it together, I could coach you through it.” Plaintiff declined.

O’Reilly further indicated that “the second floor.” (i.e. Fox management) considered a woman producer to be “psychotic” and that she was “as far as she’ll ever go at Fox.

… O’Reilly once again launched into a lewd and lascivious, unsolicited and disturbing sexually-graphic talk.

Despite informing him that she was not at all interested in the conversation, and despite her adamant refusal to participate in such talk, O’Reilly informed Mackris that he was watching a porn movie and babbled perversely regarding his fantasies concerning Caribbean vacations because, purportedly: ‘Once people get into that hot weather they shed their inhibitions, you know they drink during the day, they lay there and lazy, they have dinner and then they come back and fool around … that’s basically the modus operandi.”

During the course of his monologue, O’Reilly further stated:

Well, if I took you down there then I’d want to take a shower with you right away, that would be the first thing I’d do… yeah, we’d check into the room, and we would order up some room service and uh and you’d definitely get two wines into you as quickly as I could get into you I would get ‘em into you… maybe intravenously, get those glasses of wine into you….

You would basically be in the shower and then I would come in and I’d join you and you would have your back to me and I would take that little loofa thing and kinda’ soap up your back… rub it all over you, get you to relax, hot water… and um… you know, you’d feel the tension drain out of you and uh you still would be with your back to me then I would kinda’ put my arm – it’s one of those mitts, those loofa mitts you know, so I got my hands in it… and I would put it around front, kinda’ rub your tummy a little bit with it, and then with my other hand I would start to massage your boobs, get your nipples really hard… cuz’ I like that and you have really spectacular boobs…

So anyway I’d be rubbing your big boobs and getting your nipples really hard, kinda’ kissing your neck from behind… and then I would take the other hand with the falafel (sic) thing and I’d put it on your pussy but you’d have to do it really light, just kind of a tease business.

Mackris was frightened and disturbed.

During the course of this monologue, O’Reilly suggested that he would perform oral sex upon Mackris, and that she would start to perform fellatio upon his “big cock” but not complete the sex act: ‘you’d tease me, like you wouldn’t really do it, you’d just like – ‘cuz I know you … you’re like a tease.”

During the course of his perverted ravings, O’Reilly told Plaintiff that they would engage in sexual intercourse. When Mackris again reminded O’Reilly that she did not want to participate reminding him that he was her boss, O’Reilly responded: ‘you just have to suspend that.”

During the course of O’Reilly’s sexual rant, it became clear that he was using a vibrator upon himself, and that he ejaculated. Plaintiff was repulsed.

After climaxing, O’Reilly again boasted that none of the women he’d engaged in sexual relations with would ever tell:

Nobody’d believe ‘em … they wouldn’t [tell] anyway, I can’t imagine any of them ever doing that ’cuz I always made friends with women before I bedded them down.

O’Reilly concluded stating:

You know, Mackris, in these days of your celibacy and your hibernation this is good for you to have a little fantasy outlet, you know, just to keep it tuned, keep that sensuality tuned until you know Mr. Right comes along and then you can put him in traction … I’m trying to tell you, this is good for your mental health.

Mackris felt angry, abused and disgusted.

… O’Reilly telephoned Mackris and, once again, without invitation or solicitation, launched into yet another disgusting, lewd and disturbing monologue concerning his sexual fantasies with her, until he climaxed. During the course of this call, O’Reilly said to Plaintiff: “Next time you’ll come up to my hotel room and we’ll make this happen.” Plaintiff felt frightened and threatened.

Having been involved in many sexual harassment investigations during my time in the corporate world, there is no doubt that this was a case of intentional quid pro quo sexual harassment and a hostile work environment stemming from the sexual harassment.

It was a pattern of wrongful behavior by O’Reilly from May 2002 through January 2004 and again from July 2004 through September 2004.

It appears by reading through the complaint that Mackris documented the statements made by O’Reilly and it does strongly indicate that some of those conversations were recorded. In addition to the sexual comments, there are also threats, and that other women at the Fox News Channel were also victims of O’Reilly’s sexual harassment. Mackris also had a witness to some of the conversations.

Again I would ask how is it that Bill O’Reilly kept his job at Fox. Keeping him employed at Fox could have placed The Fox News Channel in jeopardy of further civil litigation had other women accused him of similar conduct? Were other female employees at Fox settled with based on what was in the complaint?

Then there were the domestic violence allegations that Bill O’Reilly had abused his then wife, Maureen McPhilmy, while they were married and that he used his connection with a police department to get a detective fired for having an affair with his wife. Further allegations were that he used his connections in the Catholic Church to have them go after McPhilmy.

The American blog, Gawker, that focuses on news about the media industry and celebrities have done some significant reporting of this subject.

According to Gawker, O’Reilly and McPhilmy separated in April 2010, after which McPhilmy began dating Nassau County Police Department, Detective, Jeffrey Gross. Since O’Reilly was helping raise money for the Nassau County Police Department Foundation, his calls to the NCPD initiated an internal affairs investigation into Gross and his relationship with McPhilmy.

Gawker wrote, “An incredible waste of police resources, and a devious way of getting back at McPhilmy by harassing her new boyfriend.”

According to Gawker O’Reilly and his wife were finally divorced in September 2011. McPhilmy later married Gross.

O’Reilly interviewed Timothy Cardinal Dolan on the O’Reilly Factor and according to Gawker donated more than $65,000 to New York Catholic parishes and schools in 2011, learned from the tax return of his nonprofit foundation, which carries significant weight in the archdiocese.

Gawker reported in March 2013 that O’Reilly was trying to get McPhilmy excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, in which the couple were married in 1996. McPhilmy received a letter from her local parish, a Long Island institution where O’Reilly enjoys influence, admonishing her for taking communion, as divorcing and remarrying is frowned upon in the Catholic Church.

In March of this year Gawker reported that they had obtained partial transcripts, which they published, from the custody trial between O’Reilly and his ex-wife.

The documents, which recorded testimony given in 2014, confirm that the ex-couple’s teenage daughter told a court-appointed forensic examiner that she witnessed O’Reilly “choking her mom” as he dragged her down some stairs” by the neck.

The same transcripts also reveal that O’Reilly told his daughter that her mother was an “adulterer;” that he struggles to control his rage around his family; and that his daughter regarded him as an absentee father.

Bill O’Reilly in a statement to Politico said: “All the allegations against me in these circumstances are 100 percent false. I am going to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect my children and will not comment any further.”

If the allegations were 100 percent false as O’Reilly claims in this instance, is he calling his daughter a liar?

Was it another conspiracy involving his daughter and others out to destroy him as he has said over the years with everything else?

Considering what was contained in the complaint against O’Reilly in the sexual harassment case with Andrea Mackris, his hypocrisy has no bounds.

When we watch Bill O’Reilly on television who are we really looking at?

A fabricator of lies and one who bends the truth to fit a narrative; a man who perversely sexually harassed a female subordinate or a man who choked his wife and dragged her down the stairs?

Or is it the real Bill O’Reilly; the man who survived a combat situation in Argentina; reported on an active war zone in the Falklands; the man who saw nuns get shot and saw guys gun down nuns in El Salvador; the teacher in a poor school; the man who saw Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs or the man who was about to knock on a door in Florida when someone blew their brains out?

You decide?

Doug Poppa

Doug authored over 135 articles on the October 1, 2017 Las Vegas Massacre, more than any other single journalist in the country. He investigates stories on corruption, law enforcement and crime. Doug is a US Army Military Police Veteran, former police officer, deputy sheriff and criminal investigator. Doug spent 20 years in the hotel/casino industry as an investigator and then as Director of Security and Surveillance. He also spent a short time with the US Dept. of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration. In 1986 Doug was awarded Criminal Investigator of the Year by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia for his undercover work in narcotics enforcement. In 1992 and 1993 Doug testified in court that a sheriff’s office official and the county prosecutor withheld exculpatory evidence during the 1988 trial of a man accused of the attempted murder of his wife. Doug’s testimony led to a judge’s decision to order the release of the man from prison in 1992 and awarded him a new trial, in which he was later acquitted. As a result of Doug breaking the police “blue wall of silence,” he was fired by the county sheriff. His story was featured on Inside Edition, Current Affair and CBS News’ “Street Stories with Ed Bradley”. In 1992 after losing his job, at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Doug infiltrated a group of men who were plotting the kidnapping of a Dupont fortune heir and his wife. Doug has been a guest on national television and radio programs speaking on the stories he now writes as an investigative journalist.