Former New York Post Editor,Australian,Col Allan.Credit:Getty
Poole,who Gotthelf said fired her in November after more than two decades at thePost,is a defendant in a lawsuit she filed on Tuesday,along with Allan,an Australian,and the newspaper’s publishing company and corporate owner News Corp.
Gotthelf said Allan’s harassment of her “peaked” in fall 2015 when she was the newspaper’s metro editor. The two were having drinks after an editors’ dinner meeting when Allan said that “we should sleep together,” she said in the lawsuit.
She said Allan became hostile when she rejected his advances. She complained to her superiors and human resources,and alleged that Allan was forced to retire shortly thereafter.
He returned as a consultant in 2019,however.
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Gotthelf said their relationship remained tense,and she saw her influence and status in the newsroom erode. She said that in 2019,Allan ordered her to remove fromthe Post’s website a story about journalist E. Jean Carroll’saccusations that she had been raped by then-President Donald Trump. Trump denied the charges and the lawsuit said Allan claimed Carroll’s charges were baseless.
The New York Times reported that Gotthelf complained to human resources and to Robert Thomson,the Australian chief executive of News Corp,but was told that “if Allan ‘tells you to do something,you do it.’”