Consider the indignities sustained by Andrea Mackris, a former Fox News producer who reached a 2004 settlement with then-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. Before she filed her suit alleging sexual harassment by O’Reilly — which outlined max-creepy behavior, threatening language and more — O’Reilly turned the tables by slapping her with an extortion complaint. Fox News-friendly investigator Bo Dietl was dispatched to rummage for dirt about Mackris, who was 33 at the time of the legal wrangling. “The goal was to depict her as a promiscuous woman, deeply in debt, who was trying to shake down Mr. O’Reilly, according to people briefed on the strategy,” wrote Emily Steel and Michael S. Schmidt in the New York Times in April 2017. “Several unflattering stories about her appeared in the tabloids.”
Her settlement with O’Reilly — which was confidential until a separate court proceeding unveiled it earlier this week — paid her about $9 million, according to the Times.
The agreement is an astounding document with an ethics-bending provisions, as this blog reported on Wednesday. One of them raised significant questions about the role of Mackris’s legal representation by the Morelli Law Firm, which bills itself as a “a trusted advocate for victims of negligence, discrimination, and harassment.” The firm agreed to these provisions:
A statement from lawyer Benedict Morelli pushed back at the implication of those words: “Every step we took was to negotiate the best possible deal for Ms. Mackris. We worked extremely hard to secure a significant financial settlement for her. The claim that I did not vigorously represent her, or that I represented O’Reilly during or after the settlement process, is absolutely false.”
According to a Friday filing in a subsequent O’Reilly case, Mackris would appreciate a bit more vigor. The New Jersey employment law firm Smith Mullin P.C. represents Mackris and two other women in a defamation suit in which the women claim O’Reilly trashed them by complaining the allegations against him over the years have amounted to a “hit job.” The implication, according to the suit, is that the women — each of whom reached a settlement with O’Reilly over either sexual harassment or mistreatment — weren’t being truthful in their claims.
After O’Reilly last fall whined about the forces arrayed against him, Mackris sought a copy of her settlement from the Morelli firm. Apparently that didn’t go well. “Ms. Mackris does not have this document,” notes the Friday filing by Nancy Erika Smith. “Her prior lawyer has refused to provide it.”
We’ve asked the Morelli firm for its response to this claim. A public-relations representative for the firm said on Friday afternoon that there would be no reply.
Also in Friday’s filing, Smith is requesting that O’Reilly’s lawyers disclose a key document in the proceedings: “A separate, confidential agreement concerning payments to Mackris” that is referenced in the main agreement.
