This document was modified after this version and cut back in size dramatically but this version gives the whole detail. Filed in 2004 in a revised version.
Lee Kent Hempfling
11329 E. Caballero
Apache Junction, Arizona 85207 DRAFT ONE
480-332-1535
Filing in pro se
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF SOUTH CAROLINA
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Plaintiff, vs. L.M. COMMUNICATIONS INC., L.M. COMMUNICATIONS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, INC., L.M. COMMUNICATIONS II OF SOUTH CAROLINA, INC., Lynn Martin, an individual, individually, Charles Cohn, an individual, individually, Bruce Musso, an individual, individually, Michael Almond, an individual, individually, Linda Grumbine, an individual, individually, William Allen, an individual, individually, Gess Mattingly & Atchison, P.S.C., Defendants |
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1. RETALIATION WITH MALICE AND RECKLESS INDIFFERENCE TO THE FEDERALLY PROTECTED RIGHTS OF AN AGGRIEVED INDIVIDUAL IN VIOLATION OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964, AS AMENDED; 2. PRETEXT TO HIDE RETALIATORY MOTIVE; 3. DEMAND FOR TRIAL BY JURY.
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JURISDICTION
This Honorable Court has Jurisdiction and venue over the Defendant(s) and this Complaint as acts made to cause this complaint occurred within the Jurisdiction of South Carolina 28 U.S.C. § 1391 (a)(2); L.M. Communications Inc. (LM) through common ownership, common officer(s) and common primary business address, exercises sole control over L.M. Communications of South Carolina Inc. (LMSC) & L.M. Communications II of South Carolina Inc., (LMIISC); the business address of both being registered with the Federal Communications Commission as the same as L.M. Communications Inc. of Lexington Kentucky ; Lynn Martin (Martin), a resident of Kentucky, owns 100% of stock in all three defendant companies; Plaintiff Lee Kent Hempfling (Plaintiff) resided in South Carolina at the time of this case and now resides in Arizona; a Federal Question and venue is present [28 USC 1331, 28 USC 1332 (a)(1) (c)(1), 28 U.S.C. § 1391 (a)(2)] over issues of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as Amended, the matter in controversy exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum specified by 28 U.S.C. § 1332 (a). A Federal Question and venue [28 USC 1331, 28 USC 1332 (a)(1) (c)(1), 28 U.S.C. § 1391 (a)(2)] is present over issues of damages in cases of intentional discrimination in employment under 42 U.S.C. § 1985 (3) and 42 U.S.C. § 1981a (a)(1) (b)(1). The Civil Rights Act of 1991 forbids an employer from discriminating against an employee “because he has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice by this title or because he has made a charge, testified, assisted or participated in any manner in any investigation.” Defendant employer employed fifteen or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 121, Document 368). Plaintiff is in receipt of a ‘right to sue’ letter issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 1, Document 18).
Plaintiff, LEE KENT HEMPFLING, alleges as follows:
EXHIBIT 1
GENERAL ALLEGATIONS
1. Defendant, L.M. COMMUNICATIONS INC., (hereinafter “LM”) is, and at all times herein mentioned was, a corporation operating and doing business in the State of Kentucky, and in Charleston County, South Carolina, through direct control of: L.M. COMMUNICATIONS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, INC., (hereinafter “LMSC”) which is, and at all times herein mentioned was, a corporation operating and doing business in the State of South Carolina, and in Charleston County, South Carolina, and L.M. COMMUNICATIONS II OF SOUTH CAROLINA, INC., (hereinafter “LMIISC”) is, and at all times herein mentioned was, a corporation operating and doing business in the State of South Carolina, and in Charleston County, South Carolina. At all times herein mentioned, individual defendants were employees and officers and or legal counsel of the defendant LM, LMSC and LMIISC. The acts herein alleged occurred within the County of Charleston, State of South Carolina.
2. At all times relevant hereto, defendants CHARLES COHN, BRUCE MUSSO, MICHAEL ALMOND, LINDA GRUMBINE, were residents of the State of South Carolina.
3. At all times relevant hereto, defendants LYNN MARTIN, WILLIAM ALLEN were residents of the State of Kentucky.
4. At all times relevant hereto, defendant GESS, MATTINGLY & ATCHINSON, P.S.C., was a legal corporation of the State of Kentucky.
5. Plaintiff is informed and believes, and based thereon alleges, that each of the defendants named herein was at all times relevant to this action, an agent, counsel, employee, or officer of defendant LM, LMSC and/or LMIISC, and was acting within the course and scope of that relationship and in personal deference of that relationship. Plaintiff is further informed and believes, and therefore alleges, that each of the defendants herein gave consent to, ratified, and/or authorized or agreed to the acts alleged herein to each or some of the other defendants.
6. The plaintiff, Lee Kent Hempfling, is a natural person residing at 11329 E. Caballero St. Mesa Arizona, 85278.
7. On information and belief, defendant L.M. Communications Inc. is a Kentucky Corporation with its principal address of business as 1300 Greendale Rd., Lexington, KY 40511.
8. On information and belief, defendant L.M. Communications of South Carolina Inc. is a South Carolina Corporation with its principal address of business as 1300 Greendale Rd., Lexington, KY 40511.
9. On information and belief, defendant L.M. Communications II of South Carolina Inc. is a South Carolina Corporation with its principal address of business as 1300 Greendale Rd., Lexington, KY 40511.
10. On information and belief, defendant Lynn Martin is a natural person residing at 3321 Overbrook Dr, Lexington, KY 40502 or process at 1300 Greendale Rd., Lexington, KY 40511.
11. On information and belief, defendant Charles Cohn is a natural person residing at 148 Oyster Point Row, Charleston, SC 29412 or process at 59 Windermere Blvd, Charleston, SC 29407.
12. On information and belief, defendant Bruce Musso is a natural person residing at 507 Stinson Dr, Charleston, SC 29407.
13. On information and belief, defendant Michael Almond is a natural person residing at 321 Harbor Pointe Dr, Mount Pleasant, SC 29464 or process at 59 Windermere Blvd, Charleston, SC 29407.
14. On information and belief, defendant Linda Grumbine is a natural person residing at 2706 Ahsley Ferry Rd. Charleston SC 29414.
15. On information and belief, defendant William Allen is a natural person residing at 809 Hildeen Dr, Lexington, KY 40502 or process at 201 W Short St, Lexington KY 40507.
16. On information and belief, defendant Gess Mattingly & Atchison, P.S.C. is a Kentucky Corporation with its principal address of business as 201 W Short St, Lexington KY 40507.
FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION
RETALIATION WITH MALICE AND RECKLESS INDIFFERENCE TO
THE FEDERALLY PROTECTED RIGHTS OF AN AGGRIEVED INDIVIDUAL
IN VIOLATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964, AS AMENDED
17. The following, together and separately constitute opposition to discrimination and participation in protected and covered proceedings. The statutes do not limit, or condition in any way, the protection against retaliation for participating in the anti-discrimination process. While the opposition clause applies only to those who oppose practices that they reasonably and in good faith believe are unlawful, the participation clause applies to all individuals who participate in the statutory complaint process. The reasonableness or validity of the underlying charge is irrelevant.
18. Plaintiff served as Program Director, a middle management position, “responsible for the entire on-air product” (National Association of Broadcasters, Careers in Radio ISBN 0-89324-106-7) for LMIISC (WCOO) from early February, 2002 until discharge on July 23, 2002.
19. From starting date until February 28, 2002 Plaintiff enjoyed a nearly normal working environment for the property, similar to others so situated.
20. On February 6, 2002 Plaintiff spoke with Wayne “Skip St. John” Morath (Morath) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 2, Document 409) before his ‘air shift’ telling him to “Just be yourself, not a disk jockey, talk one to one and take it easy”. Morath responded: “Damn, you’re already starting to be an asshole.”
21. On February 6, 2002 in the evening (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 2, Document 409) Morath informed Mike Almond (Almond) that the Disabilities Act was protecting his job. Prior to this date Morath had informed Plaintiff, that Plaintiff ‘sounded like the consultant’.
22. On February 8, 2002 Plaintiff held a staff meeting with employees of the programming department of LMIISC. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 3, Document 142)
23. On February 8, 2002 Plaintiff issued an instructional memo to LMIISC programming staff regarding the use of ‘voice-tracking’ on the station. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 4, Document 381).
24. On February 9, 2002 Plaintiff conversed in email (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 5, Document 113) with Consultant Don Hallett about the station’s night personality in response to Plaintiff’s Exhibit 3, Document 142. Consultant Hallett: “Great job with the staff meeting and thanks for sharing.”
25. On February 9, 2002 Plaintiff presented (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 142, Document 133) discussing plans for station, changes in music scheduling, program clocks, staff on-air delivery, weather, marketing and musical jingles.
26. On February 14, 2002 Plaintiff debuted ‘Lee Kent in the Morning’ on WCOO (LMIISC). (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 6, Document 148) details a re-cap of the first ‘day on the air’ and advises Consultant Hallett, by purpose of supporting the owner of the station, that: “. . . it was fun… tomorrow things will be fixed mechanically… EXCEPT ANYTHING that requires an engineer…. if anyone has any pull please replace the engineer… his attitude is downright horrible.. he is constantly putting Lyn down and bad mouthing the ownership in the hall ways…”
27. By February 14, 2002 discussions had been held with General Manager Charles Cohn regarding personnel changes in the station to meet owner Lynn Martin’s (Martin) insistence on ‘professionalism’.
28. The week of February 18, 2002, a name mentioned by Plaintiff to Cohn was Patricia Thompson, a part-time African American air-talent working weekends, whom Plaintiff had identified as ‘talented’ and worthy of training. Cohn rejected the concept of Patricia Thompson’s being hired fulltime as he had ‘issues’ with Thompson. Cohn never explained what ‘issues’ meant. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 7, Document 10)
29. On February 20, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 8, Document 128) Plaintiff informed Consultant that the evening ‘personality’ had resigned after Plaintiff had brought to his attention the belief that he had falsified payroll records, “. . . not working and billing for time he did not work as well as recreating all of the breaks for the entire evening show completely generic so he did not have to come in to work.”; “. . . I have found that it will take building an audience before I can build phones… after a week of promotion the diaper thing went well but since then they have fallen back into the passive mode… even simple giveaways draw very little response… it will be a up hill road to hoe but we’ll get there…”; “lost my computer today to the 98 Rock studio since their 360 died… interesting to note that the engineer’s solution for 98 ROck’s phone needs was to remove Cool’s phone ability computer… so instead he took my computer which just got fixed… ticked him off I guess when I told him no he could not take the Cool phone line computer… but its good that Rock has recording ability now ’cause it won’t make my traffic reports late anymore… I’m really puzzled as to why engineer man can’t stand to talk to me, look at me or otherwise be civil…”
30. On February 20, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 9, Document 379) Plaintiff issued a series of Format Execution Rules to programming staff of LMIISC setting out the manner in which employees ‘on-air’ were to handle on-air execution of speaking and element presentation.
31. On February 20, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 10, Document 384) a memo was written and submitted to General Manager Charles Cohn for the personnel file of Stevie Sprinkle, African American part-time talent, informing Cohn that Sprinkle had resigned: “In the meeting today Mr. Sprinkle admitted that driving to the station was not worth his while on a daily basis. This means his billing the station for time spent daily was fraudulent.”
32. The letter to the personnel file of Stevie Sprinkle on February 20, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 10, Document 384) started with: “To: Charlie Cohn, Personnel file (Stevie Sprinkle) Subject: Resignation”
33. Cohn received the letter and hurriedly approached Plaintiff to inquire if Plaintiff really meant Plaintiff was resigning.
34. On February 24, 2002 Plaintiff proposed a promotional concept to Consultant Don Hallett for a Charleston Movin’ Up promotion. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 11, Document 109). Hallett responded: “Make is so….. please start working on gathering a fax database for a “loyalty program.” We can discuss this as your convenience.”
35. On February 24, 2002 Plaintiff proposed a promotional concept to Consultant Don Hallett for a Cool Kids promotion (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 12, Document 111). Hallett responded: “In a word, Nice!”
36. On February 24, 2002 Plaintiff proposed a promotional concept to Consultant Don Hallett for a Real Life Survivor promotion (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 13, Document 110). Hallett responded: “Again, nice… but I’d suggest doing the “Cool Kids” first and once it is underway, make this stage two.”
37. On February 24, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 14, Document 145) Plaintiff offered a personally built web site which resulted in the ‘fax database’ Hallet had requested, to the station through the Consultant for use free of charge. Plaintiff informed Hallett: “the control room has to be online to access it which is why I’m not in a hurry to finish the programming… we won’t be online” Cohn had rejected a WCOO website.
38. Not at anytime prior to February 28, 2002 was Patricia Thompson informed by Plaintiff that she was being considered for a full-time staff position.
39. Not at anytime prior to February 28, 2002 was Patricia Thompson informed by Plaintiff that she was being monitored and evaluated for a full-time staff position.
40. The Wednesday prior to February 28, 2002 Plaintiff spoke with Patricia Thompson and attempted to allude to better things for the station coming. Thompson was urged to stay at the station for those changes.
41. Plaintiff received a letter of resignation from Patricia Thompson, dated February 28, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15) wherein, Thompson informed Plaintiff that she had been contemplating ‘for some time’ to leave the station’s employment (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 17, Document 14).
42. In the letter of resignation of February 28, 2002, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15) Thompson thanked Plaintiff “for your professionalism”.
43. In the letter of resignation of February 28, 2002, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15) Thompson thanked Plaintiff “for your sincerity in asking me to stay”.
44. In the letter of resignation of February 28, 2002, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15) Thompson informed Plaintiff “. . . my decision to leave was made, and based solely on numerous events, prior to your arrival at COOL 105-5.”
45. In the letter of resignation of February 28, 2002, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15) Thompson presented ‘condition’s in which she might reconsider leaving.
46. In the letter of resignation of February 28, 2002, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15) Thompson listed those reasons as “A specific raise to at least $10.00 an hour…”; “if consideration is given to me, in the future, for a full-time or specific weekday day-part, I would expect a ‘true salary’ to be negotiated at that time”; “the weekend of Saturday March 9, and Sunday March 10, off”.
47. In the letter of resignation of February 28, 2002, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15) Thompson informed Plaintiff that ‘regardless of the outcome of the aforementioned , I trust we can and will still work together for Charleston’s Promise, as well as on other promotional endeavors.”
48. In the letter of resignation of February 28, 2002, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15) Thompson informed Plaintiff: “If my specific requests cannot be met at this time, then please accept this as my formal Letter of Resignation, because I am seriously feeling the infamous words of one of the greatest rhythm and blues artist … B.B. King … ‘The Thrill Is Gone’ (smile)”.
49. In the letter of resignation of February 28, 2002, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15) Thompson requested of Plaintiff: “should this not work out at this particular time, PLEASE, keep me in YOUR mind for any future endeavors or opportunities that you know I would be suited for.”
50. Plaintiff spoke with Thompson upon receipt of the February 28, 2002 letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), during which Thompson broke down into tears at her resignation being accepted.
51. Plaintiff was not aware at the time, of the hourly rate paid to part-time staff in the Charleston radio market, but drawing upon experience, Plaintiff knew it could not be $10.00 per hour and asking management to ask for an increase in a part-time rate for the person Cohn had already rejected as having ‘issues with’ was not possible. The resignation was accepted.
52. Charles Cohn was immediately informed of the resignation letter. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15).
53. Plaintiff returned to normal job tasks and issued a memo (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 18, Document 380) outlining weekend tasks and responsibilities and processes to the programming staff.
54. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: March 1, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 19, Document 152) Plaintiff’s morning radio program was subjected to sabotage: “Yesterday morning (Friday 3/1/02) it came to a head with a phone call placed to the hotline number just as I was going into the :36 set in the 7AM hour. Jessica Mickey had not yet called in for her traffic report (which comes in on the hotline at that time). As I always do when she calls, I took the call live and told her “hello, thanks, we have 5 seconds, here we go”. Since the cue line does not feed the headphones I have no possibility of hearing if she has hung up or if the line has gone dead until I actually go to the line live on the air. In this case I went through my 60 second rap and cued her with the shout, potted up the line for her traffic report and the line was empty. I said “hello” and paused for an answer. During this pause I heard her talking faintly in the background like she was over another speaker being picked up by the phone that had called the hotline. Another voice was in the background with a “thank you Jessica”. Then the line was disconnected by the caller. It did not take long for this to happen. I dumped out of the traffic bed and hung up the hotline. Immediately it rang and it was Jessica saying she could not get through because the line was busy.”
55. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: March 1, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 19, Document 152): “The only people in the building were Bobby (who was working, running the board at 98Rock and playing Jessica in cue) and Bruce who arrived at 7:30 instead of his usual 6:30 where he spends that time in his office talking on the phone and playing solitaire.”
56. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: March 1, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 19, Document 152): “Two public affairs commercials I recorded (with the production order being on top of the pile in the production room) were tampered with. From Darkness to Light 30 second spot was cut off at 9 seconds. The 60 second spot was cut off at 1 second. They aired first on 98Rock where DC found them, I re entered the audio into the carts and they were not missed.”
57. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: March 1, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 19, Document 152): “(Friday 3/1/02) the NC11 DCS cart holding the cross promote sweepers for middays and afternoons had a third unauthorized cut added to it containing 51 seconds of dead roll. The only people who know that cut runs at 15 and 45 (the times I go outside during the morning because of the two song back to back roll) were Bobby and Bruce. This was the day after Bruce had complained about receiving transmitter messages for the stations saying he was “not responsible for dead air after leaving the building”. I caught the cut before it aired as it did not belong there so no damage was done but it would have caused the alarm to go off for Cool while running a seemingly valid DCS cut.”
58. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: March 1, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 19, Document 152): “(Friday 3/1/02) the batteries I use (which had just been charged up) to run my portable clip on radio (which I use for on air monitor since the control room air monitor cannot be raised in volume enough and is so bad a quality I can’t listen to it) were completely discharged. I found two batteries in another drawer and used those.”
59. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 2, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 19, Document 152): a list of serious engineering and safety hazards was provided to the Consultant in email.
60. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15) which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 2, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 20, Document 154): Consultant Hallett: “I suggest we talk about this tomorrow. I “feel your pain.” Please don’t issue any memo regarding the engineering situation until you and I speak. As for production guidelines, the general malaise, etc., a joint stance from you and Mike is a great plan. I’d review the same with Charlie before general staff receive it.”
61. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 2, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 21, Document 153): Plaintiff informed Hallett of the ‘need for a united front’ to bring the station into professionalism and agreed to not issue a production memo without that united front.
62. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 3, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 22, Document 144): A production policy memo was written for both stations and approval of all signatories (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 23, Document 413): “Here is the production policy memo. It covers just about everything necessary to run a professional production establishment as there is nothing in place at the station now.” At 2:05PM Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett of a sabatoge to the music library of WCOO in (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 143, Document 432) “somebody (I have the backup here at home now) copied Santa Claus is Coming to town Pointer Sisters into the Dance party category… it got scheduled… but it was caught now I see that it is actually in that category… it has been removed… very funny”
63. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 5, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 24, Document 60): As part of the job description of a Program Director, Plaintiff, who was unable to acquire an ‘aircheck’ from programming staff as no ‘aircheck’ machine was installed in the ‘control room’, worked at home, on his own time to listen to air staff and critique their performance. The first aircheck critique of Skip St. John (Morath) took place on March 4, 2002 and was submitted to Mr. Morath during business hours on March 5, 2002. This document closely followed the critique performed by Consultant Don Hallett dated December 1, 2001. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 25, Document 394):
64. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 5, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 26, Document 30): Morath wrote a response to the critique. Never, in the entire career of Plaintiff had an air staff member ever found it within his or her reasoning to have written a response to a job critique. Morath claimed his response was ‘on my attorney’s advice’.
65. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 5, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 26, Document 30): The document stated: “I can see nothing you have done differently with me than with other announcers.” The document then proceeded to list a ‘deal’ with the station that was not in existence.
66. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 5, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 26, Document 30): “At 12 Noon 2/27/02 I met with Charlie Cohn and Martha Moore. At this time Charlie and I agreed we were on the same page and the deal remains the same. Charlie then requested your presence. When you arrived he reiterated the deal and requested that you work with me. So why are we revisiting this is in writing since the parameters of my employment were understood and agreed upon.”
67. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 5, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 26, Document 30): Morath was told of a serious attitude problem; refusal to adhere to the chain of command and demands for preferential treatment having nothing to do with his ‘medical’ condition. “You have a great deal of work to do to reach any level of acceptance to this radio station’s on air needs that has nothing to do with your medical condition.”
68. It was clear from early on (see February 6, 2002) that both Morath and Linda ‘Logan’ Grumbine (Grumbine) were set in their ways as talent, in a station where no management had directed them, which was the reason Plaintiff was hired.
69. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 4, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 27, Document 61): Plaintiff, acting in his capacity of Program Director listened at home, on his own time, to the air shift of Linda ‘Logan’ (Grumbine). The result was a deep concern for the legal protection of the station ownership. A critique was prepared and provided to Grumbine in which serious concerns were addressed for what sounded like the fix of a contest. The primary responsibility of all management personnel should be the protection from legal liability of the employer.
70. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 4, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 27, Document 61): Grumbine was informed of improper work ethic, improper and unacceptable work performance and unauthorized leave of her work station.
71. Dated the same day Grumbine received her critique: is a letter written by a ‘listener’ that arrived at the station and was distributed to all sales staff by Charles Cohn before being shown to Plaintiff. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 28, Document 378): calls for “I’m not sure where you found Mr. Lee Kent, but you need to send him back.” ; “I’m not sure who’s decision it was to discontinue morning requests, but that, too, was a poor decision.”; “Please…Please…Please… give us a new DJ and let us have our morning request line.” In talking with persons within the station it became apparent that Cohn wanted the sales staff to see a fraudulently instigated ‘complaint’ letter that matched the ‘complaints’ both persons who would not properly execute their jobs had already mentioned.
72. Cohn had managed to meet with Morath without Plaintiff (his supervisor) to make a ‘deal’ without the supervisor’s input or prior knowledge and with the supervisor’s surprise to find such an unethical event had taken place, after Cohn was requested for permission to promote and hire an African American female to a full-time job. Cohn had managed to distribute (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 28, Document 378) and talk about a complaint letter written about the Plaintiff from what ‘talk’ inside the building attributed to a ‘friend’ of Linda Grumbine’s, written the same day Grumbine had received a written critique of her job performance.
73. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written March 4, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 27, Document 61): Grumbine’s critique letter was, as it should have been, copied to the General Manager and to Grumbine’s personnel file.
74. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: March 6, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 29, Document 373): At 9:40AM a meeting was called by Cohn, who had already privately spoken with Grumbine about her critique letter. Grumbine was late to her air shift at 9AM many mornings, each week due to ‘private’ meetings with Cohn, causing the ‘hand-off’ from shifts to be missed and in many cases forcing Plaintiff to remain on air, past Plaintiff’s show ending. In the meeting Grumbine informed Plaintiff that she was ‘unjustly accused of contesting’ and things ‘wrong’ in her critique were the result of ‘mechanical error’, that she was ‘editing the winner’ when the wrong cut played.
75. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: March 6, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 29, Document 373): Charles Cohn instructed Plaintiff to write an addendum to the critique recognizing the ‘mechanical error’ and to edit the file copy of the critique to reflect that addendum. Plaintiff refused to amend a valid job performance critique post-submission. It was agreed to add an additional addendum of Grumbine’s excuses, not editing the original.
76. On March 7, 2002 Plaintiff emailed Consultant Don Hallett on progress of a replacement afternoon drive personality (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 30, Document 135): It had become possible to potentially hire a long-time professional, major market radio personality for afternoon drive at the station. Hallett: “Sorry for the delay in the response. First off, don’t sell LInda short? OK? I don’t know if Charlie/Lynn would make this deal with Majhor. I suspect it’s 5K plus high of their “number.” Moving expenses always are an issue with LM hires. Float the trial balloon with Charlie. If anyone can get it done it will be him.”
77. In what had been considered prior, common sense broadcasting: On March 7, 2002 Plaintiff issued memos, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 31, Document 374) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 32, Document 376) regarding remote broadcasts and voice tracking and other basic issues to air staff members.
78. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written to Consultant Hallett March 8, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33, Document 134): “Have handed it to Charlie.. Lyn approved 30k for the position for John… its a matter of how , now… in the mean time Linda has managed to start crying because she received an aircheck pointing out how a listener would perceive her running a voicetrack call for contest calls immediately followed by the awarding of the winner by name “Let’s go ahead and just give the prize to…” her defense is the DCS screwed up… too often used of a defense.. and cannot be proven one way or the other…”
79. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written to Consultant Hallett March 8, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33, Document 134): “I listened to Skip later that day where his errors were mechanical not DCS then he called me to inform me he was rebooting the DCS because it was screwing up…. then Linda went crying before her shift the next day to Charlie missing the opening of her show. We had a meeting. Things worked out. I agreed to add her statement of equipment failure to the report for the file but she had demanded of me before the meeting to issue her a written apology and remove the report from her file.”
80. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written to Consultant Hallett March 8, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33, Document 134): “Then a letter came in yesterday from a ‘listener’ complaining about me and the stations ‘format’ change using terms only radio people use which I received from Mike instead of Charlie only after the sales department knew about the letter which turns out to be from a friend of Linda written on the same day she received her aircheck letter. Two phone calls in the morning yesterday from ladies telling me how great Linda is and how they just loooove her show.”
81. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written to Consultant Hallett March 8, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33, Document 134): “Skip is complaining to the traffic person (outside company) that he won’t be doing afternoons in the future (which he knows) and the engineer calls me at home to literally yell at me for giving him a note asking to move one of the microphones which Charlie asked me to write to give to Bruce. So it was real nice! I told him to chill, he didn’t. Then to knock it off. He got louder. Then I hung up. He threw his keys and quit.”
82. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written to Consultant Hallett March 8, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33, Document 134):” The first three days of show prep (I was saving in a file for the new web site content) are missing.”
83. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written to Consultant Hallett March 8, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33, Document 134):” New wall hangers for production are in my office found one yesterday morning had been literally smashed into pieces.”
84. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written to Consultant Hallett March 8, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33, Document 134):” Lyn told Mike if he had people who would not work to fire them (in a meeting with Charlie, Bob and me).. I know it upsets the ‘norm’ but the ‘norm’ is losing. Oldies 102.5 is vulnerable and they know it as they are now saying before commercial breaks “Up next, more of the motown you want to hear” and they lead with one… This station needs a team of working professionals. Sales has it. Great sales team. Programming is a bunch of individual kingdoms.”
85. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written by Consultant Hallett March 8, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 34, Document 107):” Break down the walls, but don’t create, stir or instigate battles. Tough days ahead…. You have my support!”
86. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written to Consultant Hallett March 8, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 35, Document 136): ”Thank you very much. You are a good start. My only personal difficulty is having my ethics and character questioned because people make up really good stories…”
87. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: written to Consultant Hallett March 8, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 36, Document 137): “Temper tantrums, crying, lies, backstabbing and the new guy gets blamed. And its so sad that a guy I really admire is getting run over. All I want to do is my job which I took as being make it work and make money. I want to show Lyn that I would do what I told him it would do. Backing off the projections now. Taking it to the top is not what the staff intends to do. You can’t pull a donkey that likes it being on its ass. And I can’t replace them with workhorses. The morning show will kick butt. Its a one man show for the owner. And hey don’t worry… I will never lie, neither will I make my own kingdom and abuse the right to work here.”
88. Following receipt of the resignation letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, Document 15), which spoke highly of Plaintiff: March 9-11, 2002 Patricia Thompson faxed a letter to Lynn Martin and dropped off copies of it to the station (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10): Prior to March 9, 2002, after the week of February 18, 2002 Cohn was aware of Plaintiff’s desire to have the station ‘lean black’ (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 37, Document 418) and of one request to hire and promote an African-American female to a full time on air position and acted through private meetings with Morath, Grumbine and Musso (whom he held nearly daily lunches with) to continue the discrimination alleged by Thompson.
89. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “I’d like to assure you that my reasons to leave have absolutely nothing to do with the arrival of Mr. Lee Kent as the new program director for COOL 105-5. In fact, hiring Mr. Kent is probably the BEST decision that your organization has made in regard to personnel matters, in quite some time.”
90. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “I am certain that through his professional leadership, Mr. Kent will accomplish great things for both COOL 105-5 and LM Communications.”
91. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “It is already evident that he is truly a radio professional and I am confident he will clean up what has become a very unprofessional and unorthodox work environment in the COOL 105-5 Programming department. It’s about time someone put a stop to the nonsense.”
92. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “To my dismay, he has arrived a few months too late for me to continue to endure, while he makes the necessary adjustments. However, I am grateful to have worked with him the short time I have and appreciate his mentoring.”
93. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “However, prior to Mr. Kent’s arrival is why I have resigned.”
94. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “Additionally, I am formally informing you that I am in the process of seeking counsel and advisement as to possible EEO violations and/or other violations as they pertain to FCC violations and business operational violations per the Secretary of State for the State of South Carolina, who grants businesses permission and licenses to operate in our State.”
95. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “During my tenure with WCOO/COOL 105, in the Programming department, beginning October 2000 – March 2002, 1 was the only African-American female and disabled veteran in the department, working only on Saturday and Sunday.”
96. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “Eventually, I grew tired of being associated with a small group of small minded individuals, whom through their CLIQUE association with the General Manager and the like, were being allowed to perform substandard work; make numerous mistakes with no consequences; and use crutch excuses for their mistakes, while embarrassing and downgrading the true capability of what should have been an outstanding radio station, in all day parts, all the time.”
97. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “Which leads me to wonder, how a station that operates an urban R&B format and not have obvious, African-American representation, would ever expect to achieve higher ratings? There are no sales associates that are African-American and now there are no African-Americans in the Programming department, either. The only full time African-American employed by the station is the receptionist.”
98. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “As recent as today, during the Charleston’s Promise Children’s Festival at Brittle Bank Park, Linda Logan along with her husband, came to where I was playing music for the festival. I thought she had come to promote the station.”
99. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “But there, while I was working on the platform, playing the music for the children’s festival, Linda approached the platform and proceeded to rant and rave about how angry she was with Lee Kent. Linda told me what a “fucking asshole” Lee Kent is and proceeded to tell me how Lee had written her a four page Memo air check; as well as about the Memo Lee had written to Skip, who by the way is taking his to an attorney.”
100. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “Linda stated she was wondering if why I’d resigned was because I’d received a Memo from Lee also. I informed her that I had already told her the week before, when she asked to speak with me, that I’d been considering leaving and no it was not because I had received any Memo from Lee.”
101. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “Linda then proceeded to take the Memo from her purse and show it to me by saying, ^Here, you need to read this crock of shit!” Then she started talking about how Lee had really “fucked up” by “pissing” Bruce, the Engineer off, and that Bruce had quit the station and had thrown his keys and cell phone on or at Charlie’s desk and that now they were going to have to contract for his business and that because of “Lee’s stupidity” Lynn Martin was getting ready to “pay out the ass” because Bruce was “really going to charge them for his services now.””
102. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “My musical colleague was standing near by while Linda was telling me all of this and stated that he would continue to play the music so I could take a break. I then, began to read the Memo to Linda from Lee Kent.”
103. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “As I read, I found that I agreed with everything that Mr. Kent had indicated in his Memo, as these are typical patterns of how Linda does things. I imagine she’s gotten away with it for so long that even she is oblivious to what she does.”
104. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “And, if you don’t choose to believe me … get someone you do trust to make some home tape recordings of your midday and p.m. drive radio announcers. Or, I can just send you some that I have if you’d like. I always say proof… leaves no room for doubt.”
105. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “But what am I talking about? You have Lee Kent now!!! I’m sure from that Memo he gave to Linda, which she totally deserved, (and had no business showing it to me by the way, just another example of her unprofessionalism because under no circumstances are Linda and I in any capacity friends or allies) Lee has obviously become aware of all the unprofessional activities that have been going on for a long time now, and just in the short month or so that he’s been at COOL 105-5. And, I didn’t have to say a word.”
106. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “What a BLESSING for COOL 105-5, to have Lee Kent to clean up the cancerous virus mess that lives within the bowels of COOL 105-5!”
107. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “Having been a supervisor in the military for over 13 years, I have been trained to notice certain professional inadequacies. However, I was also in a position to train personnel and correct those inadequacies, and as part of my responsibilities, I was expected to make those corrections in a professional manner.”
108. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “At no time, was I allowed to discriminate, disrespect or humiliate a fellow soldier in the process. And, if reasonable corrective measures were not achieved through written documentation or proper training, then other measures were taken to include disciplinary action, if warranted.”
109. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “I, professionally and personally expected more from my co-workers, employer and the radio station(s) of LM Communications in the Charleston market. And Sir, unless I’m grossly mistaken, so does the EEO, FCC, the Secretary of State and the people “all of them” of the LowCountry.”
110. Plaintiff received (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) the March 9, 2002 letter from Patricia Thompson to Lynn Martin within which Thompson said, “After consideration of advisement from my attorney, I will notify you of my course of action regarding these matters during my tenure with WCOO, LM Communications. Thank you for your time.”
111. Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoked potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff and began a long series of direct, malicious and reckless indifference to the federally protected rights of the Plaintiff.
112. A prudent person would think it unreasonable that a company, faced with written notification of a potential EEO charge would not instigate an internal investigation of the discrimination and harassment allegations.
113. A prudent person would think it unreasonable that a company, faced with written notification of a potential EEO charge would not instigate an internal investigation of the discrimination and harassment allegations and interview the complainant’s most recent supervisor regarding those allegations.
114. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 38, Document 131) Plaintiff to Consultant Hallett: “I know you said to let things roll of my back and to break down walls without making noise but the phone call I just got changes everything. Now it involves the radio station. I got a call from Trish Thompson, calling me long distance from the collegiate football banquet in Columbia to fill me in on what happened yesterday at the Charleston’s Promise Children’s Festival. Linda Logan was there to do the live remote broadcast. She brought the aircheck and letter she received last week with her and proceeded to read it outloud, very loud to Trish while members of the Charleston Promise organization were standing nearby and overhead everything.”
115. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 38, Document 131) Plaintiff to Consultant Hallett: “She told Trish all of her complaints about me, how she is going to write a response to the memo and aircheck to Lynn and how Skip and Bruce and her are out to get me out. Trish put it this way “Thick as thieves. Cross one and you cross them all. A clique getting away with everything they can with not having to do their jobs.””
116. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 38, Document 131) Plaintiff to Consultant Hallett: “Last week I agreed to allow her to submit a response to the accusations made in the aircheck letter (permitting her to brush off her errors to mechanical DCS screwups) because I was told to. She has not yet submitted that addendum.”
117. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 38, Document 131) Plaintiff to Consultant Hallett: “A great deal of complaints were lodged against me for daring to fix things. I now need to literally insist that I be given permission to get rid of these people if this station is going to move ahead with progress instead of remaining tied up in controversy and internal backstabbing. Linda and Skip out, now. What ever happens to Bruce is not my doing. But those two are. It is time for these stations to start acting professional while trying to be a professional station and the people on Cool are not the ones to do it. I am not going to permit them to drive me out of this station no matter how they plan to do it. I need help here.”
118. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Grumbine submitted (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 39, Document 21) March 11, 2002 in which she stated: “I find the ‘Programming Memo’ that you gave to me and copied to Charlie Cohn, Don Hallett and my Personnel File to be full of assumptions, accusations and rude remarks.” After a long and detailed list of ‘reasons’ for the critique points (which followed the ‘technical problem’ excuse provided earlier), Grumbine continued:
119. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Grumbine submitted (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 39, Document 21) March 11, 2002 in which she stated: “Now, on to what I found offensive with your memo to me. I have NEVER and WILL NEVER fix a contest as you have suggested in your memo. I have worked for this station over two years and feel a “personal” bond to it, as well as a “business” bond. I was the first mid-day person to work at the station when it had been on the air for 6 months. I have been the most consistent thing the station has had going for it until now. I love the station, I love the music and I have always done what I could to present the station in a positive manner.” Grumbine failed to add she had been fired by the station for having been caught attempting to look in employee files to ascertain how much they made.
120. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Grumbine submitted (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 39, Document 21) March 11, 2002 in which she stated: “The “fixing” of the contest, as you allege, was a technical glitch caused by computer malfunction.” In ‘working’ the same equipment, Plaintiff never experienced any form of the ‘reasons’ provided.
121. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Grumbine submitted (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 39, Document 21) March 11, 2002 in which she stated: “Since the majority of what was written in the memo and air check is incorrect, I do not believe that it should be placed in my personnel file. Since copies were sent to Charlie Cohn and Don Hallett, I believe that a letter of retraction should be written to them both. From now on, I expect that you will come to me when you have a problem with me and ASK what happened. I will tell you the truth. If, after you have spoken with me, you feel that it is necessary to put an entry in my personnel file, then do so. At least then, it should be accurate.”
122. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Grumbine submitted (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 39, Document 21) March 11, 2002 in which she stated: “I am always willing to accept any constructive criticism regarding my delivery and board performance so that my presentation can improve. However, I feel that your memo in this regard is counter productive. From a purely business standpoint, it is hard for me to believe that memoranda written to belittle and intimidate the air staff is productive and professional, especially when said memo is written in the heat of the moment without benefit of pertinent information which was easily obtainable. The rude personal remarks were totally unnecessary and highly unprofessional.” A prudent person reading the critique (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 27, Document 61) and memo attached would ascertain a serious degree of concern for the perception of what was heard by the listening public, which was what the memo addressed.
123. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Grumbine submitted (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 39, Document 21) March 11, 2002 in which she stated: “Therefore, I feel I have no recourse but to insist that a letter of retraction be sent to the parties originally copied in regard to the unfounded accusations on my character which have since been found to be totally false.” Nothing was ‘found to be anything’.
124. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Grumbine submitted (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 39, Document 21) March 11, 2002 in which she stated: “Since I received the original document with such haste, I feel it only right that I be given a copy of this retraction in the same timely manner.” The letter (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 39, Document 21) was written the day after Thompson faxed Martin and five days after the critique was received. Morath submitted his objection to being held accountable for his job, the following day, dated the same day as the critique.
125. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Grumbine submitted (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 39, Document 21) March 11, 2002 in which she stated: “I believe that this document constitutes harassment, and violates several state and federal statutes. If placed in my file, I will be forced to seek legal assistance in having it removed.”
126. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Grumbine submitted (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 39, Document 21) March 11, 2002 in which she stated: “Rude comments about this being radio for “humans” and assumptions of “booking dance parties” are personal and have no place in a business “document”.”
127. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 38, Document 131) Consultant Hallett to Plaintiff: “I’ll help as I can. Employee conduct is best managed locally, but I will intervene, mediate and advise to the best of my ability. Please forward a copy of Linda’s aircheck letter and the response if you get one from her.”
128. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 40, Document 138) Upon receipt of the Grumbine complaint ‘letter’ a meeting was called with Cohn, Grumbine and Plaintiff, in which Cohn tore up the critique of Grumbine in front of Plaintiff and Grumbine.
129. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 40, Document 138) Plaintiff to Consultant Hallett: “Sorry I can’t send you the memo on Linda. But nothing was said about what her memo to me said so here is the second to last paragraph… which got torn up along with my memo as we are starting from “scratch” I just can’t win these things…”
130. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 40, Document 138) Plaintiff to Consultant Hallett: “… I’ll be concentrating on my morning show now…. I’m not to put anything in writing and without an aircheck machine I can’t have a one on one aircheck session… so far its been three accusations of lieing and now its threatening… I don’t have the blood pressure medication for that… and since I still haven’t gotten our medical insurance papers I can’t get any…. going to take a breather now… had a simply great morning show today… gotta do better”
131. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 12, 2002 Linda Grumbine (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) entered Plaintiff’s office and asked if ‘are we going to have a staff meeting’. Plaintiff responded, ‘no, what for, what staff?” Morath had been discharged leaving Grumbine as the only employee of the department (other than weekend talent). Grumbine left the office and returned shortly thereafter and asked Plaintiff “Since we live “SO” close to each other, why don’t we have a “STAFF” meeting, just the two of us, somewhere, maybe have coffee, or “SOMETHING’. (Emphasis shows verbal emphasis of Grumbine’s demeanor.) Plaintiff immediately pointed toward the door and ordered Grumbine, “No! Get Out!” Plaintiff left his office and went to Cohn’s office to see where Grumbine had gone. Cohn asked Plaintiff, “How’s everything upstairs?” Plaintiff responded, “same ol’ same ol’ with Linda.” Grumbine was not in the ‘office’ near Cohn at that time.
132. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 12, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) Plaintiff explained the attempted ‘sexual harassment set up’ to his wife Suesie Kent-Hempfling. She was understandably upset at the potential for accusation.
133. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 13, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) Plaintiff did not have long-distance service at the time. On the phone the night before, Suesie Kent-Hempfling mentioned the sexual harassment set up to Patricia Thompson. Thompson urged her to call Martin with that information. Mrs. Hempfling informed Thompson she could not as she did not have long-distance. Thompson gave her the number to use of Thompson’s calling card. After Plaintiff had left for work, before the morning show started, Plaintiff’s wife wrote out a series of comments she would tell Martin about the ‘set up’ for sexual harassment attempted by Grumbine. Mrs. Hempfling decided to call Martin and used Thompson’s calling card number to call the Lexington KY station office and leave a message for Martin to call her at his convenience. When Mrs. Hempfling placed the call, expecting a recording (long before office hours) the phone was answered by a disk jockey on one of the stations in the building. Mrs. Hempfling informed him she was calling to ask Martin to call her when he had a chance about serious problems in Charleston. The disk jockey asked if she wanted him to call Martin right then. Mrs. Hempfling responded that it was up to him. The call ended. The call was placed very early to make the call short by using their answering machine. It would not use up the calling card.
134. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 13, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) Shortly after leaving a message with a disk jockey of one of Martin’s Lexington KY stations, Martin called Plaintiff’s wife at Plaintiff’s home. Plaintiff’s wife then proceeded to recite the notes she had written (she was too upset to attempt to rely on memory). “I am involved in this mess at Cool and I will not sit back and watch my husband’s reputation be destroyed by Linda Logan’s apparent sexual innuendo.” Mrs. Hempfling strongly informed Martin of the sexual harassment ‘set up’ attempt by Grumbine and other issues, listed in order, in Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424. She informed Martin “This is just another kind of attempt to get Lee out and he can’t do anything about this one because she will twist it and more than likely say it was Lee who suggested it. Which I know better. And he would never consider anything like she was saying.” Martin had been informed of an allegation of a ‘setup’ for sexual harassment against a member of his management staff. Martin informed her to repeat what Grumbine had done about Thompson, “Linda came out of the conference area (where she was doing some kind of work) and said (referring to Trish) “She better be glad I didn’t come out… I would have cussed her out then beat her ass for trying to get my job.” Mrs. Hempfling informed Martin that only she and Cohn were aware that Plaintiff wanted to train Thompson for middays. Martin’s only interest in the call was what happened in regards to Thompson. Plaintiff’s wife referred to the call she had answered, placed by Martin to Plaintiff investigating Thompson’s allegations and Plaintiff’s informing Martin of agreeing with those allegations and Martin’s promise to ‘get to the bottom of it’. Martin responded that he tells ‘Charlie’ everything.
135. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 13, 2002, as the first step of investigating the allegations made by Patricia Thompson in her faxed letter dated March 9, 2002 a meeting was held in Charles Cohn’s office (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 49, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) with Cohn, Plaintiff in person and Hallett and Martin on a conference call. It was ordered during that meeting, by Martin that no one was to talk to Patricia Thompson until he said it was approved to do so. It was ordered by Martin in that meeting that nothing would be done about hiring or firing until further investigation of Thompson’s allegations were completed. Martin complained about ‘receiving’ an early morning phone call from Plaintiff’s wife, at his home. In fact, Plaintiff’s wife had called the business line at the Lexington KY stations outside of business hours, expecting to leave a message for Martin to return the call. Martin called Plaintiff’s wife shortly after the message was given to a disk jockey who answered the call instead of a recording. In the conference call Plaintiff objected to the ridicule Martin and Cohn were placing on Plaintiff’s wife for having made the call. No content of that call was brought up by Martin during the conference call. No action was taken on the concerns raised in Plaintiff’s wife’s conversation with Martin after he returned the initial call. Martin ignored the allegation levied regarding a set up of sexual harassment against a member of his management staff. Thereafter, one of the ‘excuses’ used to denounce Plaintiff was Martin ‘receiving’ an early morning call from Plaintiff’s wife. Plaintiff’s wife did NOT call Martin at all.
136. Following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 14, 2002 Cohn called Plaintiff into his office, immediately after Plaintiff’s 9AM show ending: slammed the door, then slammed his fist on the desk, sat down and ordered Plaintiff that no one, not Plaintiff, or his wife was ever to call the Lexington KY area code ever again, unless it was Plaintiff calling ‘Pam’ the bookkeeper on company business.
137. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: March 15, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) Cohn had ordered Plaintiff to call Patricia Thompson and determine what kind of job she would consider, in violation of Martin’s prohibition of contact with Thompson.
138. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 43, Document 81) Plaintiff received an email March 15, 2002 from Bruce Musso: “You Suck”. Plaintiff responded telling Musso to stop emailing.
139. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 44, Document 31) March 15, 2002: Plaintiff received an email from an account belonging to an engineer associate of Bruce Musso containing a photo of two Palestinian terrorists armed with AK-47’s standing in front of a billboard of Yassar Arafat with the caption embedded in the image: “Lee, Best Wishes on the new job, Yassar!” The ‘job’ had started over a month earlier, or was the ‘job’ to be staying employed? The email contained this text: “Mr. Morning Dick Jockey This man would love to kiss yo cheeks!”
140. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 45, Document 82): Another email March 15, 2002 from Bruce Musso stated: “dream on, if you don’t want mail don’t post your address”
141. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 46, Document 83) email March 15, 2002 from Bruce Musso: “you still suck”
142. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 47, Document 84): Yet another email was received from Bruce Musso March 15, 2002. This email invoked a former Italian dictator: “comcast said, if you can’t stand the heat get off the web your’s truely Bruce Mussolina”
143. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 48, Document 382) On March 15, 2002 Charles Cohn was sent an email by Plaintiff demanding that he put a stop to Musso’s intimidation emails. The response of the General Manager of the station on March 16, 2002 was: “I just think ignoring him right now is the best policy for all concerned. He is capable, as an engineer of doing some strange things that may make him libel for certain action but could be incredibly inconvenient for us. Imagin him doing something to the Cool transmitter, taking days to fix it etc. So we could sue him but he has nothing. Put him in jail, but you would have to prove he did it. I say just leave it alone for now and ignore anything he may send. I think if you don’t respond at all he will eventually tire of it like all children. Later”
144. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 18, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 49, Document 132) Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant: “Been thinking it over this weekend as I have this habit of evaluating everything to its utmost chess move.. I cannot carry Friday’s order out without it backfiring on me. I prefer to remain clean.”
145. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 19, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to John Majhor (living in New Mexico) and requested advice: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 50, Document 22) “All right my friend… a question… If you were in this position what would you do? At my wits end here and I can’t trust anybody including Don I am sorry to say which makes no sense, I know… but there’s too much happening… Butt covering going on…”
146. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 19, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to John Majhor (living in New Mexico) and requested advice: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 50, Document 22) “Former parttimer who was with the station for about two years, passed up for full time by less qualified people (so she says) and is black… was going to be trained by me (she has the talent) to do more with her career but she resigned saying she would not put up with the mess at the station. Then she wrote a 14 page memo to the owner Lynn Martin in Lexington and copied me, Charlie (GM) and both air staff members involved blowing the lid on a whole bunch of stuff I cannot talk about with anybody in the station or out as they were to my knowledge all correct yet I was mentioned nicely in the letter so its a conflict of interest on my part to go into the letter with anyone. Anyway…”
147. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 19, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to John Majhor (living in New Mexico) and requested advice: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 50, Document 22) “the thing really hit hard on Charlie (GM) who has passed it off inside the station as referring to the previous GM (which by dates of events does not) and he’s covering his tail by setting me up to make it look like I put her up to the letter and therefore gets him off the hook with the Labor board… I did not put her up to anything… had no knowledge of it… period… but here is what is now happening…”
148. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 19, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to John Majhor (living in New Mexico) and requested advice: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 50, Document 22) “Charlie called me in his office Friday and in front of Ken French the station manager for 98Rock ordered me to call Trish (the parttimer) and see if she had calmed down yet and if she was interested in a job with the station again… then he ordered me to put the receptionist on air doing voice tracks (black girl too)… I thought it over.. there ain’t no way I’m going to call Trish… well.. he was not there yesterday so today he called me in his office with Mike the PD of the rock station (who does not have a clue about the set up) and began by saying he had heard from Skippy and then how were things upstairs then “Lee, what do we hear from Trish?” like I’m an idiot or something… I have not called her so I said I didn’t hear anything… yesterday I wrote Don and told him this…”
149. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 19, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to John Majhor (living in New Mexico) and requested advice: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 50, Document 22) “Then today the closing attempt in the set up… have seen this far too often in business… the set up was the meeting with Ken French where a backup witness is available to say Charlie never ordered me to call Trish… and then the unsuspecting Mike today who was to be able to say he heard me talk about contacting Trish who may have a civil rights case against Charlie and the station…”
150. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 19, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to John Majhor (living in New Mexico) and requested advice: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 50, Document 22) “so here I sit… wife and all just new in town and the GM is covering his tracks my hanging me out to dry and setting me up to make it look like the complaints in the parttimer’s letter were all based on my trying to get rid of his buddy Linda Logan the midday girl and replace her with Trish.”
151. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 19, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to John Majhor (living in New Mexico) and requested advice: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 50, Document 22) “What the hell do I do? I can’t confront Charlie on it he’ll only deny it and then know I know what he’s up to and be far more deceptive in the follow up… I can’t call Don since he talks with Charlie daily and I can’t call Lynn as I can’t do what Trish did.. I can’t go over my bosses head… Comments from Don on the side indicate he is aware of the problems but nothing can be done… What the hell would I do?”
152. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 19, 2002 Consultant Don Hallett write Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 51, Document 104) Plaintiff had created his own aircheck from a personally owned ‘boombox’ of the morning show and submitted it to the Consultant, as the station did not have an aircheck machine in the WCOO control room. “The aircheck sounds great. My God, I think you found a home, Mr. Kent.”
153. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 19, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 52, Document 124) Plaintiff responded: “Thank you sir… coming from you that almost makes up for the day’s games… the show is only going to get better… you shoulda heard today’s calls… these people are funny… aircheck system is not a priority right now I hear… but that wasn’t the reason for the meeting AT ALL… yes, we’d like to call it home … if we’re allowed to stay…”
154. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: March 19, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 53, Document 372) Mike Almond was required to write Bruce Musso, engineer to request engineering repairs and adjustments for WCOO at the suggestion of Charles Cohn.
155. Following participation in a beginning investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424)] , following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: March 20, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) Plaintiff had received a telephone call at home in the evening from Martin, which lasted well over an hour. The call was answered by Plaintiff’s wife Suesie Kent-Hempfling who upon identifying herself was asked by Martin, “How are you?”. Mrs. Hempfling answered, “Not so good, with everything that’s been going on. Its been very upsetting.” Martin promised her “Don’t worry, I’m going to get to the bottom of this”. She asked him, “Do you promise”. He responded, “Yes.” In that call, Martin asked Plaintiff to detail what Plaintiff knew about Thompson’s allegations, including those involving the people in the station and promised to ‘get to the bottom of it’. Plaintiff responded with the truth as observation and knowledge provided. This was the second participation in an investigation of allegations of discrimination (a protected activity, see 135). Plaintiff informed Martin that the allegations made in the February 28 and March 9 letters from Thompson were, to the best of his knowledge, true. During the call Martin asked for a copy of the February 28, 2002 letter from Thompson as he did not have one.
156. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 21, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) Plaintiff informed Martin via fax (confirmed receipt from station fax machine) that : “Attached is the three page letter I received from Trish. This has been my only action in the matter until I was asked to contact Trish. I declined to do so as I did not think my doing so was a good idea.”
157. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 21, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) Plaintiff informed Martin via fax (confirmed receipt from station fax machine) that : “To summarize our telephone discussion: I got the impression during my meeting with Trish regarding the attached letter that her passion for the station was the main point. Her crying was when she realized it was indeed ended. We even discussed the station’s’ involvement in Charleston’s Promise (children’s organization part of America’s Promise) in our upcoming “Cool Kids” promotion as she sits on the board of Charleston’s Promise. She was amicable in continuing that pursuit as she was in the upcoming “Real life Survivor” promotion which she had been working on contacting James Brown to be the spokesman for the promotion and was hoping to research music for the station in my quest to find new titles for possible review. I had high hopes for Trish as I felt the station needed the sound and the community connection and I was sorry to see her leave. I still do not believe her motivation is money.” This fax constituted the third participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination, a protected activity.
158. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination (a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) March 22, 2002 Plaintiff received a phone call in the afternoon at his home from LM, LMSC, LMIISC Legal Counsel, William Allen of Gess Mattingly & Atchison, P.S.C., informing Plaintiff that he was conducting an ‘investigation’ into the allegations of discrimination brought by Patricia Thompson. Allen was aware of the previous telephone interrogation of Plaintiff by Martin and apologized for needing to ask more questions. Plaintiff refused to answer questions unless Plaintiff was assured his job would not be in jeopardy for telling the truth. Allen responded that he had known Martin for a long time and was sure Martin was not that way. Plaintiff informed Allen of the truth contained in Thompson’s complaint letters and informed Allen of additional events, sabatoge, harassment and intimidation of Plaintiff. Plaintiff demanded intimidation stop. This interrogation constituted the fourth participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination, a protected activity.
159. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination (a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) March 23, 2002 Plaintiff faxed a follow up letter to Allen , which constituted the fifth participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination, a protected activity.
160. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) March 23, 2002 Plaintiff informed counsel “The attached email messages have been sent to me from Bruce Musso including two attempts, the latest moments ago from aol to infect my machine with a worm virus. Management has been asked to put a stop to this but has not done so apparently out of fear that Musso would shut off the transmitters as he alone has the codes here to turn them off and on.”
161. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) March 23, 2002 Plaintiff informed counsel “I consider this to be harassment condoned by management as no action has been taken after repeated notifications to put a stop to it I have filed numerous times to remove Musso’s email account but it still continues.”
162. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) March 23, 2002 Plaintiff informed counsel “I expect something will be done to put a stop to this. I am tired of being bullied in an attempt to get me to leave this station when I’m the only one here working for the owner.”
163. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) March 23, 2002 Plaintiff informed counsel “Today’s emails from Musso are following Linda’s being up set yesterday that she had to change the way she was doing remotes and then claimed Bobby Collins attacked a promo I made. Bobby says Linda was the attacker of the promo, (I believe Bobby as he’s shown to be a concerned employee). Each time Linda is upset it is followed by an intimidation letter from Musso.”
164. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) March 23, 2002 Plaintiff informed counsel “How long is this going to be permitted?”
165. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 56, Document 85) Another email from Bruce Musso March 23, 2002 asked: “you still suck, why are you still here?”
166. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 57, Document 28) Plaintiff sent email to Cohn March 23, 2002 demanding, “I have had enough of this. Somebody get this psycho off my back.”
167. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 25, 2002, at home, Plaintiff recorded notes (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 58, Document 370) from a telephone conversation from Consultant Hallett at 1:10PM : “…asked about info on skip, Linda and trish…asked if I or Charlie had contact with trish… informed about show demo coming… told him about john possible next week… ”
168. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 28, 2002 plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 59, Document 139) “FYI this link is to a single break from today’s Cool Cafe. This morning I left a handwritten note then talked it over with Linda about her not advertising her own business on the air unless it was a station sponsored event… but dang it… like an idiot I forgot to say she couldn’t give free advertising to anyone else… http://www.mediaiscorp.com/lk/bits/032902linda.mp3 this is a regular caller who does this every single day and like that idiot it never dawned on me to remind her of plugola laws”
169. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 28, 2002 Lynn Martin called Plaintiff at the radio station to discuss jingles and other issues. Plaintiff informed Martin that Linda Grumbine had been continually promoting her own ‘DJ’ business during her show, thanking customers for their business and promoting where she would be holding another privately paid DJ party. Martin’s response was that such activity was improper and would not be tolerated. (Plugola is a violation of FCC rules and law.)
170. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 28, 2002 Plaintiff informed Consultant of the Martin ruling on plugola, to which the Consultant responded, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 60, Document 90): “If he is opposed, I’m opposed. Company decision. Talk to Charlie. He can help you clarify and enforce whatever the policy is or becomes. You asked for Plugola/Payola policy stuff. A number are attached in various formats. I particularly like the documents from COX. Infinity’s are strong as well.” It had come to Plaintiff’s attention that the station did not have the required signed anti-payola, anti-plugola forms for each on air personality. Such forms were requested of the Consultant. The forms were created for WCOO-WYBB and Plaintiff required all air-staff to attest to the prohibitions required by law and to sign the form.
171. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 28, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 61, Document 140): Plaintiff informed Consultant Hallett that John Majhor had accepted a staff position at 28k per year with a 2k moving allowance. Consultant responded, “Nice job… I know he will bring LOTS to the project. Congratulations Lee!”
172. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 28, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 137, Document 429): Musso wrote email to Plaintiff: “Charlie said you dont play enough of the four tops. and i still think you suck”
173. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 3, 2002 Bobby Collins (Stagg), production director of both radio stations, WCOO and WYBB wrote an email memo to Plaintiff (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 62, Document 393) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 63, Document 392) : On April 3, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 64, Document 416) Plaintiff forwarded said memos with comments to Martin, Cohn and Hallett, confirming the investigation conference call: “I have received this email and the one posted below it back to back after Bobby asked to talk to me this afternoon. We had an event Sunday on the air during Jessica Mickey’s midday shift where two Linda Logan voice track cuts popped up and stung Jessica with Linda talking about something (I didn’t get the actual content as Jessica franticly dumped out of them each time they happened). Mike and I spent a great deal of time Monday hunting through logs to see what happened. The voice track cuts are in the clocks empty unless dated for the time to air. Monday morning I found both cuts to be dated from February. There was no physical way the cuts could have aired unless they were actually manually date changed. The second letter posted below details that Linda was in after Jessica’s shift on Sunday doing something to the voice track cuts. This answers the question of how bogus voice tracks showed up on the air Sunday. The rest is new info I am just now receiving. Since Trish is mentioned in the letter I thought it best to send these letters to those in the most recent conference call. Also FYI the comment in the second letter below about promoting her DJ service is the first I’ve heard in an attempt to get another announcer to promote her personal business.”
174. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Collins (Stagg) memo To Plaintiff sent to Martin, Cohn, Hallett (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 65, Document 393): “Here are a few problems that have been coming up here at work, within the past 2 weeks. I apologize for informing you of these so late. First, the week of March 25th, Trish came up to the station to pick up her last check and Linda Logan just happen to be downstairs at the time, she (Linda) overheard Trish asking when Lynn Martin would be in town next so she (Trish) could talk to him. Linda being downstairs at the time, overheard the conversation and like always took it personal. Linda began to run her mouth to Denise and then for some reason, Linda came into the studio where I was working and began to talk bad about Trish and how Trish was out to get her fired! I then told Linda not to worry about Trish and just keep her mouth shut! She said O.K. Later that night, Linda Logan called our receptionist and began to talk bad about Trish and about her fellow employees to Denise. Why, I don’t know. I am assuming that she feels like Trish really does have some dirt on Linda and she (Linda) is trying to find out what is going on with Trish and her so called case. Secondly, about 1 week ago I was giving away Boxing tickets to The Plex on the radio station and Linda overheard the winner giving me his last name and Linda claimed that he won Earth Wind & Fire tickets less than 30 days ago and he was not allowed to win again. She was saying this into the guest microphone and the caller heard her, I assumed got offended and than hung up. Probably, just lost a listener there. On 2 other occasions, Linda has made up problems about a remote that I was running for her and a comment that she made about one of Lee’s promos that was currently running. Linda than for some reason told Lee that I said the comment about the promo. I don’t know why she is gossiping and spreading lies around the station, but just like the first time she worked here, this was what the problem was with Linda the first time. Other, gossiping occasions have come to my attention, and I would be glad to tell them to whoever wants to know. Any Further Questions Feel Free to ask!” To knowledge and belief, neither Cohn, nor Martin, nor Hallett ever contacted Spragg to inquire about these allegations.
175. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Collins (Stagg) memo (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 66, Document 392): “Also, last weekend Dwight(the weekend-part timer) came into the studio to do his shift and said Linda Logan was in the studio sitting in the dj chair doing something in the dcs computer. I don’t think she was voice tracking because she doesn’t do a weekend shift anymore and I knew that she is not allowed to vt during the week. Anyway, Dwight said that she sort of freaked out when Dwight came in the room. I don’t think it was a you scared me freked out look, it was more like I got caught doing something that I wasn’t supposed to be doing look. Linda then asked Dwight to promote her dj party that she was doing later that night on the air that was not station oriented. Just thought you should know this also!” To knowledge and belief, neither Cohn, nor Martin, nor Hallett ever contacted Spragg to inquire about these allegations.
176. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: April 6 2002, Bruce Musso sent an email to John Majhor (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 67, Document 121), which can only be interpreted as an attempt to disrupt the arrival of a new employee and therefore damage the ‘job performance’ of Plaintiff: “an out of work dick jockey and a looser, sure look alot a like, just like lee !” This email was not ‘received’ by Majhor until after his arrival in Charleston.
177. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On March 8, 2002 Plaintiff issued a memo to air-staff regarding the use of voice tracking (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 68, Document 385).
178. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: During the week of April 8, 2002 Cohn had arranged through a station sales person to have a biographical article written about Linda Grumbine to be placed in the Charleston Post & Courier newspaper. Plaintiff objected to the article as Cohn was aware of the need to replace a seriously troubled and under-performing, attitude driven staff member who had been ‘caught’ violating plugola laws. With afternoon drive filled by the arrival of John Majhor and the story for the press being the arrival of John Majhor this attempt to redirect focus of station marketing was tantamount to undermining the ‘job performance’ of Plaintiff.
179. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 15, 2002 Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 69, Document 127) “Well… A few things … I have permission to fix the air chain’s compression to stop the slow recovery time (attack) for the compellor which I will do in the morning… and tweak the mic processor.. ( i hope that doesn’t result in another Bruce tirade like last week when he proclaimed somebody in the building who thinks they know how to set equipment had changed the production room mic processor so he changed it)… nobody I know of had changed anything… (which is why I’m reluctant to change anything at all until Bruce is GONE… I see it coming)”
180. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 15, 2002 Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 69, Document 127) “Come to think of it… I’m not to be worried about Bruce… so I’m not changing anything yet… I have a solution for the midday problem which is to place Bobby (who has come along very well) into middays while the search continues… it won’t cost any more and will save money for the time being … while having no screw ups on the air.. today the old chain came into play again when the car wash certificates given awy during middays was complained about by the client who is a close friend of skips…” Morath had made his own ‘deals’ for prizes without the correct station and management protocol. “Bob knows about the previous plugola problem with that account and skip…” Bob Brooks was sales manager of the station at the time.
181. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 15, 2002 Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 69, Document 127) “Linda is now sounding very out of place between John and me and its my only on air concern… all I want to do is make it sound like one radio station pointed in the same direction… and not have what I’m doing wind up on the street…. I’m starting to push sales about the promotions I’ve attempted to get started… Ken is coming through with a great mother’s day promotion which I called the Low Country Working Mother… thingamabob… fax, email, write in nominations for a working mother to win a jewelry piece with runners up… fax line (a line is available) needs to be hooked up with the fax machine (sitting in 98’s control room)” Ken French was the former General Manager of WCOO-WYBB and then current station manager of WYBB. French attempted to rectify the problem of inadequate job tools provided to Plaintiff by acquiring a new computer for Plaintiff’s use in scheduling music, after Plaintiff’s computer was removed by Musso.
182. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 15, 2002 Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 69, Document 127) “next step has got to be middays… and voice tracking the shift with the receptionist is not going to get the numbers… a working engineer would be a nice thing… buzz all over town about the station… being played on the beaches on weekends…” Cohn had suggested using Denise Moseley, African American receptionist at the station, with no on air experience as a ‘voice tracked’ replacement for Grumbine in middays. Knowing full well, if accomplished, an amateur in a prime daypart of the station would have severely damaged Plaintiff’s ‘job performance’.
183. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 15, 2002 Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 69, Document 127) “still need the plug in the cool control room covered up or fixed or something… Chris is waiting for a return call… I’ve been driving the van around town during the day and getting nice waves…. it got new raised white letter tires today with chrome wheels , is getting its 6 grand stereo system now and new art on it very soon and the old logo staying there is not going to cut it …” Chris Cantrell was suggested to Cohn by Plaintiff as a replacement engineer for Musso. Cantrell spoke with both Martin and Cohn and received completely different information on salary, duties and responsibilities. He was rejected by Cohn.
184. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 15, 2002 Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 69, Document 127) “Let me have a midday I can promote and we’ll take it beyond Pluto…. but I can’t have a sales person come to me like last week and tell me they have a writer at a local newspaper wanting to do a feature article on Linda Logan, tell the guy no, twice and have to go to Bob to get it stopped while nothing has been done like that for the morning show … granted an ad trade is in the works for the morning show for Skirt magazine (local ladies publication which is good!) … Bob has been lamenting how he understands my ‘problem child’ situation as he has his own to deal with… and we’ve both agreed to not get used to faces….” The Logan article appeared in the Post & Courier a couple of weeks later.
185. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 15, 2002 Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 69, Document 127) “word of mouth is growing, many new contest winners in pm drive today and mornings last week, Saturday almost all new callers… we’re only going to get one decent chance at cume enhancement (which is why I’m not hitting the stores with signs just yet, besides the trade for printing being slow and screwy)… I can’t have someone just learning about the station sample at work with dead air, double elements running at the same time, phone calls from the same people, wrong songs in requests, the same rap each time, no prep no understanding of what prep is, continual disregard for focus and no passion for the business or the station or the brand and miss the opportunity to keep them to other day parts…” Cohn was retaining Grumbine hoping the long list of errors and poor performance execution of her job would damage Plaintiff’s ‘job performance’.
186. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 15, 2002 Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 69, Document 127) “and the receptionist is weeks away from losing mic fright if she ever comes around… I’ll work with her but I can’t stop what I’m doing to be on her lunch schedule for training…” Cohn had prohibited Denise Moseley from training for an on air position, he had instigated, while on company time. Moseley was found by Cohn to be undergoing training during work hours with Plaintiff in the station production room, while her receptionist duties were being covered by the office manager. She was on ‘break’. Cohn literally screamed at her to get out of the production room and not to do training on company time. She was to devote her own time, and therefore the off company time of Plaintiff to be trained to do a job she was not qualified for.
187. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 15, 2002 Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 69, Document 127) “If trish would just not have quit I would have had this thing fixed a month ago…”
188. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 15, 2002 Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 69, Document 127) “which reminds me of a curiosity …. why was Linda promoted to full time after I was hired to be PD while I was on the road…” (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 70, Document 387). After Plaintiff was hired by Lynn Martin in a meeting at the station, after Plaintiff agreed to remain with the station ‘until retirement’, Plaintiff returned to Arizona to prepare for the move to Charleston. While on the road, Cohn promoted and hired Linda Grumbine to full time from part time status to fill the midday position, Plaintiff had intended to fill with an African American air talent. This was in direct response to a message Plaintiff sent to Consultant Hallett and to the contents of the resume presented by Plaintiff. The resume detailed how Plaintiff was outspoken in regards to discrimination. The letter to Consultant Hallett is (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 37, Document 418). No person was told by Cohn, Grumbine was promoted and hired to fulltime. No other person was given the opportunity to compete for that full time position.
189. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: As reference to motive for Cohn for actions taken: (On December 25, 2001 Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 37, Document 418) “Been thinking…. What to do with a jammin oldies station that has competition based in a national brand that would be something they could not compete against and that could establish its own brand, based in community, local and live, not losing its heritage music while broadening its demographic appeal… I think I got it… now this is just an idea … but I think its a killer idea… it has been done before but not this way… and this would blaze a new trail across the country…. Slogan: “One Voice” Name: MoTalk Frequency: 105.5 6am to Midnight the station playing the best of Motown and talking about the local community, regional and national issues dealing with the local community and playing Motown 24 hours a day, jingle imaging heavy on the phone number. The only technical change would be a delay on the program signal… Jocks could (other than morning drive) handle their own phone screening as they would be playing songs between callers and calls would be kept short and to the point.. a diverse air staff, leaning black .. Its a thought!” Cohn would later continually return to a ‘change in format’ topic.
190. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: As reference to motive for Cohn for actions taken: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 71, Document 419) Consultant Hallett responded to the concept of an ‘air staff leaning black’: “”It’s a thought.” I like the talk thing intertwined with format, but COOL is a typical Jammin’ Oldies and it is more dance and rhythmic than is “Motown.” Should the airstaff “lean black.” Interesting. Realize the African American representation in Arbitron cannot drive the station, even if we hook all the “wannabes.”” This assumption was later debunked with the debut of WXST 99.7 FM which has a ‘black’ air staff, plays old school and Motown music and skyrocketed to first place in the radio market in two rating periods.
191. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 15, 2002 Plaintiff wrote to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 69, Document 127) “Ken had lunch with me and we talked… but one thing I was curious about was the OM position I thought I was interviewing for… if a change has been made it would be nice to know I’m reporting to Mike now…” Plaintiff had applied, at the Consultant’s recommendation, for the position of Operations Manager of both WYBB and WCOO. After Cohn had visited Plaintiff’s internet resume presentation and after the letter to Hallett proposing an air staff ‘leaning black’, Cohn changed the position from OM (Operations Manager of WYBB and WCOO) to PD (Program Director of WCOO). During the in station interview, Consultant Hallett interrupted the discussion to inform Plaintiff, that if Plaintiff did not want to take ‘this’ position Consultant Hallett would work to find another position for Plaintiff.
192. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Cohn had placed Michael Almond ‘back’ into the Operations Manager position. Almond had ‘temporarily’ held that position prior to the search Plaintiff fulfilled. Cohn had also asked Plaintiff if Plaintiff would ‘mentor’ and ‘show’ Almond the job of Program Director, just before returning Almond to a supervisor position over Plaintiff.
193. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 16, 2002: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101) In email from Consultant Hallett: “It’s clear to me that you still have issue with Logan. What’s my advice? We talked about me reviewing an aircheck? Other than me recommending we upgrade based on poor performance that I’ve witnessed, I still need to leave a decision on this to you and to Charlie. Talk to him.” Plaintiff had spoken with Cohn on a repeated basis as the middays of the station was the weak spot between two experienced air talents. Cohn’s refusal to permit the replacement of the midday air staff member with a qualified, professional impacted upon the ‘job performance’ of the Plaintiff.
194. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 16, 2002: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101) In email from Consultant Hallett: Referencing the investigation conference call Hallett added: “I believe the team decided not to move until we 1) Had a candidate 2) Were fairly certain LM didn’t have crap pending with Skip’s firing and Trish’s resignation. I don’t know where that stands. Talk to Charlie! … Hang in there and continue to have the passion and focus I recognized when I recommended LM bring you onboard. One more thing. HAVE FUN. If there is something in your way, deal with it through channels and in a professional manner.” In reality, Lynn Martin decided in the conference call investigation meeting to not permit contact with Thompson until he ‘said so’ and to seek a ‘candidate’ and to continue the ‘investigation’. In continuous contacts ‘through channels’, Cohn used the ‘had a candidate’ issue by suggesting unqualified persons, finding a person working at Citadel Broadcasting (white female) who would not perform the tasks the job required and had already rejected the position to Plaintiff earlier, requiring Plaintiff to eliminate the full time position if Plaintiff ‘insisted’ on replacing Grumbine, with a part time position only, thereby severely limiting the candidates willing to accept such a position, reduce the shift to voice tracking by an inexperienced receptionist who was not permitted to train on company time, refused to allow Bobby Collins (Stagg) from working the shift, even though it would have saved money: all of this accomplished by Cohn to reduce the potential for ‘job performance’ of the Plaintiff and to keep the position filled to prohibit the hire of Patricia Thompson, an African American female.
195. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 16, 2002: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 73, Document 102) In email from Consultant Hallett: “Nothing to my knowledge has changed. Mike had the title of OM when you were hired. I suspect no one thought about changing his title to PD. I can see why this would be something you’d think about, but don’t make it an issue. That’s my advice. I don’t think Mike thinks you are to report to him? I believe Charlie looks at the two of you being on the same rung of the ladder. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. I hate to defer again, but if this is preventing you from being able to manage the COOL staff effectively or it is the source of muddy lines in communication, raise the issue with Charlie. For the time being maybe you could suggest both of you should have the OM title. In the event one of you or someone in the future is to step up a rung the title could be Director of Programming. Make sense?” With numerous issues developing, chain of command refusing to stop harassment, refusing to open a position expected to be filled by Plaintiff with an African American air talent, speaking to the Consultant almost daily the Consultant was beginning to find issues addressed by Plaintiff to be simple ‘complaining’.
196. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 22, 2002: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 74, Document 386) with Cohn out of town, having left without providing Plaintiff with contact ability to him, production Director Bobby Collins (Stagg) issued a memo to Linda Grumbine complaining of her job performance.
197. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 23, 2002: with Cohn out of town, having left without providing Plaintiff with contact ability to him, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 75, Document 120) Plaintiff was forced to address serious internal issues directly to Martin. “Lynn, I am sorry to burden you with additional problems but… I am printing this email and Bobby’s and will provide Charlie a copy of both when he returns. Three issues here… 1: Bruce has attempted to get John Majhor to back out of coming here by emailing his private email address before he left for Charleston. John did not get the email until today when he checked his account but the message is pasted here with headers. You will notice it addresses John as “dick jockey” the same addressment used to me in the threatening palestinian gunmen photo sent to me from a different email address. John is not too happy about the intrusion. Something has to be done to stop Bruce from any further such action and since he is mentally unstable to stop him from causing physical harm to anyone in the station or outside of it. I have avoided him when he comes into the building as he will not address me anyway. I learned of Cool’s being on the backup transmitter and of its tube going bad from Mike.”
198. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 23, 2002: with Cohn out of town, having left without providing Plaintiff with contact ability to him, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 75, Document 120) Plaintiff was forced to address serious internal issues directly to Martin. “2: Yesterday, between the time Bobby did production until noon and when John Majhor was to begin production at 1PM the production Cool Edit Pro computer was tampered with and files were purposely deleted that operate the sound card for that computer. It worked fine for Bobby but refused to give audio to John. Linda had been in the production room during that period causing me to hotline her for 2 and a half minutes of dead air. I had informed her of her requirement to stay in the control room an hour before that for alarm sounding dead air. She slipped in between CB and John. John had to reboot the computer to attempt to get it to work. According to Mike, who investigated the incident the files removed were done by searching for the program name with *.* after the name and individual files were purposely deleted from the system. Linda had received a memo from Bobby yesterday informing her that it was the second time in less than a week that production was not performed by her on schedule thereby missing paid commercials.”
199. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 23, 2002: with Cohn out of town, having left without providing Plaintiff with contact ability to him, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 75, Document 120) Plaintiff was forced to address serious internal issues directly to Martin. “3: Linda has made claims that I am not long for the station and she is upset that Bobby wrote her the memo so she is going to take it to Charlie when he gets back and complain. Ray was told this first, then since no reaction was forthcoming Linda gave the memo to Denise and the following notes will detail what happened then. My notes are below of the phone call with Bobby and Denise…”
200. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 23, 2002: with Cohn out of town, having left without providing Plaintiff with contact ability to him, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 75, Document 120) Plaintiff was forced to address serious internal issues directly to Martin. “From Bobby…. linda told denise about the memo about production received from bobby linda could not believe he wrote the memo, and that lee and bobby get along because lee is such an asshole , that lee is not long for here, bobby will be sorry when lee is gone everybody is out to get linda who has done nothing wrong is going to take all of this to charlie when he gets back and let him know what has been going on, leslie said denise was to give abc spots (and morning show spots) to bobby for scheduling for production and linda got upset about that… repeated that lee is not long for here… that the memo to her (well written by bobby and very kind) about production was bullshit… denise will tell it all… linda told denise that charlie likes linda and she is going nowhere because charlie thinks so nice of her…”
201. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 23, 2002: with Cohn out of town, having left without providing Plaintiff with contact ability to him, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 75, Document 120) Plaintiff was forced to address serious internal issues directly to Martin. “From denise… linda showed denise the memo she received, said lee not going to be here long said that lee made him write it… alliance with bobby and lee against her.. told ray with no reaction then went to denise… said charlie is on her side.. taking memo to charlie… scared since she is the only black employee to talk to anyone but lynn.. she says she is expendible… feels it is not a safe place to work… so can’t talk about it… will only discuss internal problems with lynn fear of job… linda has been saying she does not understand why bobby is aligned with lee because when bobby first got on the air all lee would say is how bad bobby was on the air… (not true, I trained him)…”
202. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 23, 2002: with Cohn out of town, having left without providing Plaintiff with contact ability to him, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 75, Document 120) Plaintiff was forced to address serious internal issues directly to Martin. “I have received an email from Bobby with the memo attached to it that was given to linda. I have read it and compared it with the hard photo copy I have and they are identicle. I am forwarding his email and the document to you in the next email message. My plans are this: I cannot allow this to continue any further. My original plans are moot since I understand the legal thing continues with Trish and more faxes so my intention is to temporarily replace Linda with Bobby in middays. I have received an application from a local man who is not too bad on the air with large market experience (WLW WKRC). The PM drive trends most recently received were from Bobby. Skip was not on the air for the majority of that period. Both Denise and Bobby are willing to talk to you about any of this and Bobby is willing to talk to you only about drugs. Denise will not talk to anyone in the building about anything.”
203. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 23, 2002: with Cohn out of town, having left without providing Plaintiff with contact ability to him, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 75, Document 120) Plaintiff was forced to address serious internal issues directly to Martin. Copies of email from Stagg were included: (Exhibit Document 122) “The other day I had given Linda a dub on a reel to reel and she came into the production room and called me an ASSHOLE! She said that she dosen’t like doing production that makes her have to use the reel to reel and that I was an asshole for giving it to her. Please pass this along to further stop this childish behavior. It is extremely unpleasant to work in this environment when I get cussed out at because of assigning production. Another problem that has come to my attention is that on Tuesday, Denise told me that Linda showed her the production memo that I gave Linda and that it was bullshit. She said that Lee and Bobby are assholes and Lee is not long for the station. She also said that she was taking the memo to Charlie because she thought everyone was out to get her. I don’t understand what is wrong with her and why something cannot be done to prevent friction in the workplace. Linda also stated that she dosen’t know why I associate with Lee. All this gossip and spreading of lies and trash talking is very stressful and upsetting.It is very hard to sit in one room upstairs, while Linda is in the cool studio with Bruce bad mouthing everyone. It is very hard to work under these conditions and I am not the only one who feels the same way. Thank You Once Again”
204. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On April 26, 2002: after Cohn returned from out of town, email to Consultant informs him of the results of the letter to Martin (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 76, Document 19) “A final decision has been made on Linda Logan. After numerous internal problems that have been verified Linda will be terminated soon. In the mean time I will be placing Bobby Collins, the production director into the midday slot as it is no cost to the station. He is on salary already. Bobby filled in for Skip in the past 1.5 trend periods. I will be working with him on inflection, delivery and show prep functions until a decision is made regarding the midday talent. I have lost the midday salaried position in doing this so I’m at a bit of a quandry to find a suitable person. My preference would be a black female (we are far too lilly white for this format!). I had one such applicant but she has no experience and this is not a training ground position, not now, not up against Cain Cameron live at CC’s Oldies 102.5. It looks like I’ll be attempting to find a part time midday personality. I cannot voice track this shift and get anywhere with it against a live literal killer like Cameron. In office listening is a serious goal and with only two live bodies on the station we’re going to be hard pressed to not sound too white!… At least with Bobby I can continue the Cool noon Cafe feature (its under contract with the sponsor anyway)… Bobby’s link is http://www.leekent.com/bits/bobbycollins.mp3 it is from the one hour he did on the air today after Linda’s four hour remote. I missed the first quarter hour as I didn’t get home fast enough to record the station. Giving a live shot to the receptionist tomorrow morning for two hours. I’ll be in there to teach, coach and ‘just in case’…. As it is now.. .whew!… it will be soooome time….. before she’s ready for prime time… if…” Cohn had agreed to use Stagg as a midday fill in, when he had rejected Stagg as the midday fill in; Cohn had agreed to work on terminating Grumbine but only if the position was no longer full time. Hiring a qualified, professional part time person for the middle of the day was a near impossibility. Plaintiff once again underscored the preference for a ‘black female’ for the position and mentioned a ‘second’ ‘black female’ applicant (Thompson being the first). That applicant, returned to the station in June 2002 to be told by Cohn, no openings were available, even though middays was still not replaceable at that time. Once again Plaintiff referred to “we are far too lilly white for this format!.”
205. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff was informed by Linda Grumbine that the station had been running at 35% to 50% of power for nearly a month. The ‘lightning strike’ claimed to have damaged the main transmitter tube had allegedly taken place a month earlier, although Plaintiff was unaware of any storm causing such an occurrence. Plaintiff had received numerous listener and staff complaints over that month’s time claiming the station, only in the morning drive period (Plaintiff’s air shift) was unable to be heard even as close away as a few miles. Each mention of the complaints to Cohn was met with rejection and claiming the station was suffering from ‘temperature inversion’ and that locations mentioned for complaints were ‘too far away’. At the time, WYBB and WCOO were on the same tower and until this date, WYBB had not suffered from ‘temperature inversion’. It was clear that Cohn’s reference to “He is capable, as an engineer of doing some strange things that may make him libel for certain action but could be incredibly inconvenient for us. Imagin him doing something to the Cool transmitter, taking days to fix it etc.” (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 48, Document 382) was the point when the idea to tamper with the station’s transmitter only during morning drive occurred. Musso stopped coming into the station in the morning during this period. He was obviously at the transmitter location reducing power during Plaintiff’s air shift in direct violation of FCC rules and law, without advising the FCC of reduced power. Upon receipt of the knowledge from Grumbine, that was spoken in a blurted out statement, she stopped quickly, having realized she ‘gave away the plan’, Plaintiff faxed Arbitron (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 77, Document 25) “Please be advised, that I have learned that Cool 105.5 WCOO Charleston South Carolina has been operating at less than 50% of power for more than three weeks and at last test has been running at 35% of power for the last week.” Cohn was ‘upset’ upon learning that Plaintiff had taken the proper step to advise the ratings company of reduced power.
206. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 78, Document 123) “finally got the new tube installed on the primary transmitter today.. have advised arbitron of our being 50% to 35% of power for the past three weeks…”
207. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On May 2, 2002: Consultant Hallett responded: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 79, Document 98) “Now I’m pissed. Tell me the story…..”
208. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “(after reading this over… when you read it DO NOT think I’m whining… I’m doing what I do… telling the truth but I can’t do a damn thing about it)… Well… now you know how I’ve been feeling… sad isn’t it…”
209. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “I did NOT know the primary tube was bad… was not told Cool was suffering transmitter problems… got a few calls about losing the station and the answer was that it was a bad area… then I overheard Mike talking about Cool and of course I listened in… then asked later and he told me the primary tube was about to die… I kept my composure (ain’t nobody seen me sweat yet)… not once was I told about Cool’s transmitter problems until Mike then told me the station was switched to the backup transmitter as Bruce had given the primary a max 30 days before toastville…”
210. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “To make a three week excursion shorter… Last week a call from a beauty shop I was told was 50 miles away (is John’s wife’s beauty shop which ain’t no 50 miles away) and there was no problem. I kept asking every couple of days (of Mike since he’s OM, I’ve been nice)… and it was that first Lynn had to actually buy one, then that Bruce had to install it, then that Bruce was going to install it, then that it would be this week then today a call from SUMMERVILLE of all places telling me the station was GONE!… then John called and said at his apartment (2 miles from the station’s location) his portable walkman was getting bleed from 105.7 and we were weak… after the 9am air shift was done I walked into the sales meeting (staying in the doorway) and more or less demanded to know when Cool was going to go full power again… the answer was today… (you have no idea how much restraint I’ve used in this whole thing)”
211. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “then at noon in the middle of the request Cool Cafe feature the station kept going off and on and off and on and Linda came out to inform me that according to Bruce the station was at about 35% of power and he was replacing the tube and Charlie had called to tell her it was happening but nobody informed me.. Doesn’t matter… I know I don’t… each get together over the past few weeks regarding the Linda thing has been spiced with things like Alice changing formats opens a hole in the market should be all 80’s, what are we going to do with Cool… that I am not focused, (bullshit) that the Linda thing is a matter of not managing by me (bullshit) it has been a “rough road” indeed Don.. and deeper…”
212. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “(which was topped I might add two days ago when she found out (I just found out today from Ken) that Trish came into the building to give Ken something and she told John in the 10 till cross over that she was ‘outta here and I’ll make sure the door doesn’t hit _ME_ in the rear’ (which all makes sense now that Ken made it clear this afternoon) which caused me to go ballistic but there was no use in saying anything I can’t fire the bitch… John was completely stunned and didn’t respond and you supposedly support keeping her, to which I responded you don’t have to work with her… and then Trish leaves a message on Ken’s voice mail asking if she can apply for the midday position since she heard a rumor (ask Ken I’m fuzzy on what it was) about middays being open soon and I can’t talk to her since Lynn last said to us all not to talk to her until he said so…”
213. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “and I asked Ken why was it if we were going to save the midday salary to pay for Stern why we just didn’t cut it out now which would mean I’m being punished for getting rid of Linda because no savings will happen until I do a baaaaad thing like clean the house of shit… oh well I should stay happy… and then there’s Citadel supposedly firing a bunch of staff but the only thing fired was admin and sales positions , I was to wait to look for one of them but I can only get one to do a couple of hours live and track the rest and there is a WHOLE HELL OF A LOT MORE.. but oh well…”
214. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “I know when the only way to get me out of the building is to destroy my ability to make the station get numbers and then wham… the real problem is solved and everything can go back to like it was MONTHS before I got there… like I told Pam weeks ago… Geesh…. I didn’t dump this load I’m just trying to flush it.. she laughed… Its making me literally sick… they know I have a high blood pressure problem and until very recently I didn’t have insurance, now I do.. watch how cool and calm I’ll be when I’m taking medication… not prozac like Linda just a simple blood pressure pill or two…. man oh man… I’ve never seen a more (dare I say it, sure its confidential)…. no I won’t I’m a gentleman…”
215. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “and each time something happens to supposedly calm things down the dirty tricks get worse, the backstabbing gets worse and the mess gets deeper… now that Stern is there Cool is totally irrelevant… again…. and if it comes in real bad like the plan is to make it be… i’ll be gone… all of the crap that has happened and nothing has been done to fix a thing… ‘cept to make me out to look like the devil, the evil one…the we don’t talk to him at ALL guy… the i’m not permitted to talk to Lynn again guy (without advance permission, which doesn’t apply to Mike but does apply to ANY MEMBER OF MY FAMILY)… (you have no idea how hard I started to laugh but stopped cause now that my wife knows Charlie pulled that crap…. ) actually it was if I call that area code he better know about it and approve it first… from me or any member of my family unless its my talking to ONLY PAM…. how dare he…. and there is no way that will ever work…. but I’m not leaving…. I will not get mad, blow up and quit…”
216. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “I have been insulted every single day since I’ve been there except for the first three days… for some reason… the not permitted to put anything in writing guy.. and the one the people in the building who care (and believe it or not there are those people) see as the fix of the station… and I wasn’t going to dump on you… I am truly sorry… but I know how it feels to be pissed… I stay that way… but there ain’t no one who has viewed it… ‘cept my wife… and they won’t… you told me to knock down the walls without stirring anything up, without causing fights… and that is what I’ve tried to do…”
217. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “Lynn said he does not have politics in his business but that is all it has been as I watch what I say to whom I say it and watch my back more than I watch the music (and I live in that now as there is nothing else i can do)… EVERY SINGLE PROMOTION I submitted for Spring was killed… oh hell… that’s enough… you’re a great guy Don… you don’t deserve my rambling… I was told Lynn has lost respect for me because I could not get Charlie when he was gone and all hell broke loose… I’m a thorn in the building and by -god they are going to get rid of me…”
218. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “Chris Cantrell was cut out of the engineer race without being contacted because he “doesn’t know enough about transmitters” the hell he doesn’t… but oh well one more thing then I’ll shut up… Charlie tried to talk me into using Bobby for afternoon drive instead of hiring John… now Bobby’s not good enough to fill in while a real midday person is found (and YES DAMMIT … I WANT A BLACK FEMALE…”
219. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 2, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 80, Document 97) “Trish is the only one I know of in this town that loves the station) and I shall be punished for getting Linda the marijuana salesman out of the building… geesh man.. I’m glad I can work on the house…. ps: All of the great response to the parody song and NOT ONE PERSON that MATTERS GIVES A SHIT (cep’t Ken)….. I am doing absolutely NOTHING WRONG yet the concern is when and how this job is going to get destroyed… I am treated like an idiot… not talked to… lied to… set up constantly and the funny thing is I know it … can see it coming and can out manage the entire thing.. which has kept me from being destroyed so far… END CONFIDENTIAL… sorry I have to do that he wants me OUT!!!!”
220. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 3, 2002: Plaintiff advised Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 81, Document 93) “Just got a call… Linda has gone off on Bobby for giving her too many dubs to do for her production schedule and accosted him why John Majhor got a voice spot and she didn’t.. she took his spot and took 20 minutes before Bobby went off on her… Mike told Bobby to take some away from her… (its friday for heavens sake)… but to tell her to do her job. HA… anyway… have a nice weekend..”
221. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 4, 2002: It would be prudent to assume that Consultant Hallett contacted Cohn and or Martin following the May 3 2002 email and it would be prudent to assume that Consultant Hallett would have been kept out of the ‘loop’ of conspiracy to deprive a citizen of civil rights and it would be prudent to assume that Consultant Hallett, reading nothing but recent serious complaints by Plaintiff and being told otherwise by management, would result in his response, even though Plaintiff was ordered not to contact Martin and not to put anything in writing: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 81, Document 93) “It would be prudent for you to include Charlie on all of your stuff with me and include Lynn as warranted.”
222. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 6, 2002: John Majhor wrote Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 82, Document 24) “Couple of things… Pam is in on Wednesday.. that’s what Charlie and Ken spoke of as Chuckie boy was hovering this morning…so I’m guessin’ Lynn will be in as well. Party/lunch on Wednesday at noon. The business cards have not been ordered, because Charlie told Leslie to hold off on ordering them (!!!!!!!!!!!!)”
223. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 6, 2002: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 82, Document 24) Plaintiff wrote John Majhor: “Had a sit down with Charlie and Ken this afternoon at 4 something… surpised me but Ken confronted Charlie on the lack of communication to me about engineering and things… long story… Charlie said the Trish this is settled but he doesn’t want her full time only part time weekends, interesting… but I’m not talking to her until Lynn talks to me… Ken told me about (first time I heard it!) Lynn is coming in at 10 Wednesday morning… lunch thing is at 1 he said… hold off business cards… interesting… very interesting… Charlie said he heard a rumor Skip is going to sue me… I said bring it on… and laughed… asshole… anyway… i’m just now starting on the numbers… registered cool1055.net (will be the Cool 1055 Network!) after discussion with Ken (Charlie urged NO web presence for cool as the internet does NOT WORK FOR COOL) Ken and I agreed on cool1055.net anyway its owned by me now… HA will be working tomorrow… but the site is only 1/4 done…”
224. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 6, 2002: John Majhor wrote Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 82, Document 24) “Verrryy Interesting, to quote Artie Johnson.. However, know that the song is not aux marked wrong. It’s literally only 1:40.79!!!!!! Charlie is a total dope if he thinks we won’t get any joy from having a net presence. D’oh. Bring it on. And the idiot is stalling with the Linda firing thing. How can he get away with shit like this? Oh, yeah…helps to be able to play on OLD FRIENDSHIP…shit, if it was me pullin’ this crap, I’d have been fired a long time ago. How the hell can Skippy boy sue you??? How’s about a quick countersuit with info into his defrauding the state!?! HeHe… I think the COOL NETWORK is an awesome conceptual thing. We can really build on it in several different ways. Woohoo!”
225. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 7, 2002: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 83, Document 420) Plaintiff emailed Cohn, Martin and Hallett a location on the Internet where all could download and view a television commercial created by Plaintiff to promote WCOO. No response was forthcoming from this invitation. Cohn had stopped all WCOO promotions and refused to advertise the station, which was a direct attempt to control the ‘job performance’ of Plaintiff.
226. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 7, 2002: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 84, Document 29) Plaintiff forwarded an email to John Majhor that had been sent to Consultant Hallett: The email contained an evaluation of the most recently received ratings from Arbitron (winter period, not the period effected by the illegal lower power and other incidents of attempts to destroy the ‘job performance’ of plaintiff.) Within that evaluation was this: “WCOO is in a unique position of needing to super server both black and white listeners and has been essentially ignoring the black listener for quiet some time. WCOO has not taken part in black oriented events, promotions or sponsorships and needs to in the near future. WCOO is missing the opportunity to entice black adults to the station by not super-serving that core with both on air presentation matching the core and promotional efforts matching the core. Most promotional efforts are essentially white targeted and as much as we need to continue this it has to be agreeable that without the black core being served we are ignoring what should be a strong 50% of our audience. I believe we can accomplish this cross application by designing promotional functions and addressing marketing in both racial areas, devote equal time to both core audiences and do so by (on air) ignoring the differences and presenting them as one. Since the station has not advertised , marketed to outside potential and concentrated mostly on addressing the choir through on air promotions the cume differences shown in the book are indicative of a long building (as indicated by the steady decline of cume) perception of what the station is. We NEED to resolve this issue.”
227. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: : On May 16, 2002: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 85, Document 87) an email was received from a ‘fake’ Yahoo address , [email protected], attributed to the former President of Warner Bros. Music and Jazz musician Gary Lemel of Los Angeles: “your station sounds muddy and mumbling,,,,,too bad so sad” The letter was sent as a forward to Cohn.
228. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On May 17, 2002: Plaintiff was presented with a ‘note’ (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 86, Document 422) and resume (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 87, Document 406) delivered to the station by Patricia Thompson attached to a compact disk (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 88, Document 423) of a demo of her on-air work. Since Martin had prohibited Plaintiff to speak to Thompson, Plaintiff’s wife (a friend of Thompson, since after late March, 2002) acquired cassettes of Thompson’s on air work. Plaintiff then edited those audio elements into a presentable demonstration and burned the CD as Thompson did not have a demo tape of her work to present in a job application. Plaintiff’s wife handed it to Thompson who submitted it on this date. Bobby Collins (Spragg) accepted the note, CD and resume and delivered it to Plaintiff.
229. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On May 17, 2002: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 89, Document 147) Plaintiff wrote Consultant Hallett: “Today Bobby handed me a package from Trish, who dropped it off this morning at the station. It had a CD and a resume inside of it and a note. The note said “Mr. Martin told me it would be ok for me to submit an aircheck & application/resume to you. Perhaps if some type of opportunity becomes available on the weekend or other area in the radio business, you’ll consider me. Thanks Patricia Trish Thompson.” I have recorded the CD to an mp3 file and uploaded it to http://www.leekent.com/bits/trishdemo.mp3 , about 2.3 megs or so in size. I don’t have a scanner but if need be I can transcribe the resume (but its long 😉 … Sorry I wasn’t able to come up with any audio on her from the DCS system but we did purge the files of all old material some time ago.”
230. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On May 17, 2002: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 90, Document 157) Cohn responded to the ‘muddy’ sound fake email message: “NOBODY has touched the processing. if there is a problem I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT. I am not sure this is a real listener. LISTEN YOURSELVES AND DECIDE.” Due to ‘listening’ both Plaintiff and John Majhor had complained about the ‘sound quality’ of the station being poor since the period the station suffered lower than legally permitted transmitter power. It was assumed the person was not a ‘real listener’ from the use of a fake name account. It was known by all persons able to be in contact with WCOO’s ‘sound’ that Bruce Musso was the only person who had access to the station’s ‘sound quality processing equipment’. Not even the General Manager had the codes to change the settings. Not even the corporate chief engineer had the code. HE had to break into the equipment to change the code back to what corporate wanted it to be. That occurred on an in station visit by Martin, Hallett and the Chief Engineer where they found the station’s sound quality to be far off expected settings. They ‘reset’ the equipment so the station sounded as it should. Within hours of their departing the market in Martin’s private airplane, Musso hacked back into the equipment and made it worse than it had been before it was ‘reset’. Only Cohn could have ordered such sabatoge in a continual attempt to effect the outcome of the Spring Arbitron ratings period to damage the ‘job performance’ of the Plaintiff and stop Plaintiff from hiring an African-American to a full time job and to continue the pervasive discriminatory practices of the management.
231. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On May 21, 2002: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 91, Document 390) At 5:27 in the evening, Bobby Collins (Spragg) wrote email to Plaintiff informing Plaintiff that the commercial ‘DCS’ computer had “froze up”.
232. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: In a meeting held with Arbitron representatives (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 92, Document 410) in March 2002, before Martin failed to renew the Arbitron license, Fall ratings were discussed. Comments of listeners were shown to Cohn, Plaintiff and Almond. Only Plaintiff took the time to record those comments in notes, even though Almond had been responsible for those ratings: A 34 year old female commented: “105.3, gone?” The station had changed frequencies from 105.3 to 105.5 in fall of 2001 and did not advertise the change to the public. A 39 year old female wrote, “Love the disco era, I like 105.5 but sometimes they play oldies way before my time.” Arbitron advised in that meeting that ‘Older demos were growing in population while younger demos slipped in population.’
233. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “THIS IS CONFIDENTIAL TO A FRIEND Well I’ll tell you. I’ve kept my mouth shut ever since we last talked except for the blatant change of audio quality of the station and no I did not do an A-B tape just to prove what I and many others already know. That topic only resulted in a lot of concern on my part and no action. What was the point in even mentioning it?”
234. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “I did not say a word when Bruce took a person on a tour of the station two weekends ago and explained how Cool was going to be changing formats very soon loud enough for my parttimer to hear it and get concerned about needing to look for work.”
235. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “I did use logic in discussing Bruce’s tirade last week when he threatened me with legal action for supposedly calling his house at 3AM every morning (how stupid!) after Bobby found a cell phone in the production room at 5:30am, I picked it up to see if it was John’s and must have touched a button on it (I’ve never seen one like that before) and it called the last called number (which turned out to be Bruce). It was Linda’s phone. I don’t know if anyone answered it as the moment I saw it ‘dialing’ I pushed every button I could to get it to stop. Bruce called the phone a moment later and I answered. (He kept calling the phone for an hour afterwards and Bobby just watched it.) He asked if I was ‘Rich’ (Linda’s husband) I said no I was Lee Kent. When I asked who he was (I didn’t know at that point) he said it was none of my fucking business and hung up. He spent the day going off ab”
236. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “I did not say a word when Linda’s husband called her last Monday (volume turned up real loud on the phone system) to attack me for running a tribute to the departing Base Commander and telling her it wasn’t worth her mentioning it to me because I would not listen anyway.”
237. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “I did not say a word when two weeks ago Bruce and Linda got into a discussion about the horrible Cool and the horrible Kent and John interrupted it where it stopped.”
238. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “I did not say a word when Bruce was called into the station to fix the phone system in Cool, and refused to do so saying it was the phone company’s problem. It took John calling Charlie to get Bruce to fix it after much yelling in the station. John has just about had enough. I’ve considered a restraining order to keep Bruce away from me but hell, he hasn’t had the guts to talk to me directly he just intimidates my staff and continues to destroy station morale.”
239. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “He threatened a couple of weeks ago to go get his gun and shoot up the Cool transmitter. I don’t care how much he hates ‘black’ music there is no place in a business for an abusive bully threatening to use guns. He’s not gone already because we can’t be without an engineer. I hope that flys if he really does something he is totally capable of.”
240. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “I did not say a word yesterday when I got a call from both Tom Bolt and Dwight Landon that the Cool mic channel was dead. They both changed mics to no avail. It took Mike calling Bruce to get him to answer his phone. He came in and fixed it but installed the very old horrible sounding Sennheiser mic for the main mic now leaving us with no interview mic and a horrible mic for the main one. The good (still working) RE20 was removed and must either be locked up or removed from the building. I went into the station this morning to see if it had been switched and change it back if it had and it had been switched but it is gone. So tomorrow morning I will be nearly unable to be understood on that mic.”
241. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “I did not say a word each time I’ve been talked to about destroying Cool and taking it all 80’s. I did not say a word when the Arbitron contract did not exist and the only numbers I heard about were 25-54 dropping a couple of tenths of a point justifying changing the format now when I see any slight drop right now as close to a friggin miracle it didn’t drop more with two new personalities in the first phase of the book, every promotion I’ve tried to get started has been ignored or stopped, low power (I know it was low because Linda slipped (caught herself and stopped) when she told me Bruce had bragged to her that Cool was running between 35 and 50% of power during the first part of the spring book) and as many mornings I get calls from people unable to pick up the station due to ‘temperature inversions’.”
242. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “I did not say a word when I was told to place an ad for a female personality after the last thing I heard was to not do a thing until there was an actual opening. Then being given the phone number and name of a person at Citadel and told to ‘leave a message’ which turned out to be the same female I learned two weeks ago was NOT interested in the position here. And no, I’m not leaving a message on Citadel’s phone system when I have the home contact information already and know she does not want to come here.”
243. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “I did not say a word when I was told we will not hire Trish after I was under the impression that was one avenue open unless a better talent came along during the search process. But right now I CANNOT HIRE ANYONE and bring a female into this environment. Bruce would have her in tears and abused like the rest of the staff and anyway, there is no way I’m going to find a parttime midday personality. Last I heard from you it was full time mid twenties.”
244. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “I did say no I was not going to ask Bruce out to coffee to suck up to him when his presence in the station and the complaint call I got yesterday from Dwight Landon reinforces the severe hostile and abusive working environment my staff is being subjected to. His presence and actions are not professional and leave the property open to action from some employee who gets in his way. I can’t stop it.”
245. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 93, Document 118) “Ken French tried to intervene Friday morning asking me why I’ve been like I have been (quiet, always smiling and no complaints, too bubbly). What would the point be in talking with him? So I didn’t. No complaints here. The topic will just be changed to my complaining and nothing will get better anyway. I intend to have a good show tomorrow morning no matter how bad it sounds and when somebody else complains about the mic being changed maybe it will be returned to the working mic. If not, oh well… No, I am not going anywhere but the bullshit is going to stop. I am a professional and treat everyone with the respect they deserve. You are wrong though, it is not a hornet’s nest. Its a viper snake pit.”
246. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Consultant Hallett wrote to Plaintiff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 94, Document 119) Hallett had heard Plaintiff lists of problems in the station and as predicted, and intended by Cohn, branded Plaintiff a complainer : “The point is this. You need to start averting, managing or finding solutions to the “obvious problems.” They are your job. One cannot build a “professional radio station” with road blocks. You are a manager. Manage. If you can’t do it single handily, ReachOut and follow through with Charlie, with me or ask for Mike’s ear. And do follow up. We, and that include YOU, are all very busy. Sorry, friend. The buck DOES stop here and now. I have faith in you and continue to support you. I’m also waiting patiently for you to take charge of things.” The obvious problem Hallett was not privy to was the ongoing and intensely increasing intimidation and retribution for agreeing with the allegations made in the March 9, 2002 letter from Thompson in both telephone investigation interviews with Martin and with Martin’s attorney Allen. Hallett was not privy to the set ups and the attempts to force Plaintiff to find working too intolerable and to quit.
247. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff received a memo from Dwight Lane, weekend part time air staff: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 95, Document 377) “On June 8, 2002 I reported for duty at WCOO for an air shift at 2PM. When I opened the mike, the VU meters were not moving while I was talking. Luckily, Ray was there to help with the problem. Although, with no avail, it still did not work. Ray called Bruce and was unable to reach him and I think he called Charlie the GM. Bruce arrived with an attitude and started saying the following ‘That fucking Lee Kent probably sabotaged the fucking thing’, Bruce was calling Lee, mumbles, cocksucker, motherfucker, etc., and also said that’s why the trend went down to a 2.8 share. He kept it up until he left. I was appalled by how unprofessional this individual was and how sloppy he looked. I feel it is a shame when you have professionals working together to make things better for the company, and then there is an individual around like Bruce to bring it down.”
248. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 10, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 96, Document 130) “After a discussion this morning about a potential change of Cool to a different format I was asked to contact you to set up a tentative mutually agreeable time for a conference call with Charlie. My argument is one where stability and a chance to mature are paramount. Yes, Cool has been playing the same essential music for some time now but it has not been professionally presented nor structured and did not have John nor I doing the execution. Word of mouth is all we have which has prompted our introduction of the ‘Pass It On’ campaign on air and the use of top of mind enhancing ‘appointments to win’. We are a new station to most of our listeners now. I do not believe a change is a smart idea at this time as Cool has been perceived by its growing audience as a ‘new’ entity as we hear every week from people who have ‘justfoundus’.”
249. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 96, Document 130) “I believe it is imperative that a station with personnel changes in phase 1 of the Spring book be allowed to complete its book as it is positioned and branded and move toward a prosperous summer book as well with results forthcoming before a judgement is made about its potential in the marketplace. I further impressed my point that we only have 25-54 numbers (I don’t know if they are female, male or adult as I have not viewed them) but I do know that we received a call today from Stevie Byrd (now with Magic) telling us it appears Cool did well in the P1 in our target demo. That remains to be seen and I understand it could be some time before we actually see numbers of specifics for this trend.”
250. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 96, Document 130) “I fully did not expect to arrive here to build a station up and have it stopped before it could get an upswing from personnel changes under its belt. It seems to me that Cool is positioned as a feel good station playing music just about everyone can relate to and most can sing along with; playing music most played by recent hollywood movies because it makes statements and touches hearts. I understand extrapolations look bad from this trend but I stand by my opinion that extrapolations rely far too much on past history and do not look forward other than the calculative result.”
251. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 96, Document 130) “I also made the point that since Cool has spent this period of time as Charleston’s best kept secret that a different formatted station would be in the same lack of marketing condition and would not only have to start all over again but would remain stagnant for a lack of awareness marketing while Cool has already built a word of mouth campaign and any change would drop those listeners out of the picture.”
252. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 96, Document 130) “We turned out over 8,000 people to the R&B Festival for Piccolo Spoletto and were greeted warmly. When we offer prizes on air that match the audience we are inundated with new callers. Our winner profile surveys are showing a positive trend in listenership comprehension of the station’s efforts and are kept in an excel spreadsheet by the receptionist if you care to see the results I can have it forwarded to you. When John and I did a remote this past Saturday morning at Splash Island we noticed most female attendees dancing to the music we were providing with the Very Cool Van and some were singing and they were all white. Cool has been positioned as the female’s station where they can listen with their kids and feel good about doing it.”
253. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 9, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 96, Document 130) Temperature inversions had finally come for real: “Today, on a bright and clear, cloudless day both stations suffered severe transmission problems as we received phone calls from Moncks Corner and Summerville complaining about being able to pick up Cool and 98Rock received calls as well. This condition does not lend itself to a growth stimulus. With Cool’s power problems during the phase one period, the constant ‘temperature inversion’ problems and absolutely no marketing outside of the station I am shocked the station did not show a more drastic fall than it apparently did but I can’t say what that fall was as I have not seen any ratings but the 12+ public numbers which were a statistical dead heet.”
254. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 10, 2002 : (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 96, Document 130) “I am not one to change tunnels because the light at the end appears to be ‘out there’ instead of next up. I believe in working toward the light and I see Cool and its presentation as being the vehicle to get us there. A mutually agreeable time idea from you would be a nice thing about now. One of my perceptions about you (which I do indeed admire) is your intent on telling what needs to be said instead of what wants to be heard. That said, if the company decides to make WCOO an all polka-country-rap station I will be happy to Umpapa-yee-haw-yo-boy all morning long.”
255. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Martin had either canceled or failed to renew the Arbitron ratings service for WYBB and WCOO in the Charleston market following the March 9, 2002 letter of Thompson. Cohn (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 97, Document 414) received ‘bootleg’ ‘ratings’ from faxes through Steve Jason, then General Manager of Citadel stations in the Charleston market and former General Manager of WYBB and WCOO sent on Friday June 7, 2002. Plaintiff did not receive the fax of those ratings until Tuesday morning June 11, 2002 as they were found Tuesday morning in Plaintiff’s ‘mail box’. Selected ratings were sent via fax to Cohn showing only those dayparts and demographic breakouts that stood to undermine the ‘job performance’ of Plaintiff. Cohn left this document for Plaintiff with a note written on the fax cover page: “Look this over and let’s talk Tues. Share it w/ Mike if he hasn’t seen them.” No ‘talk’ was held about these ratings. In this fax of ratings, 12+ adults Arbitron ratings for Charleston showed WYBB (Feb-Mar-Apr) cume dropping from 39,300 to 38,600 a loss of 700 persons. It showed WCOO cume dropping from 34,400 to 30,500 a loss of 3900 persons. WYBB’s cume had been increasing from Nov-Dec-Jan numbers (35,100 to 38,300 to 39,300) ranking 12th in the market in Feb-Mar-Apr while WCOO had been decreasing from Nov-Dec-Jan numbers (37,300 to 35,400 to 34,400) ranking 17th in the market in Feb-Mar-Apr. These numbers clearly indicate cume persons sampling the stations had increased for WYBB during the Winter rating period and had decreased during the same period for WCOO, indicating a long time problem of listener awareness of WCOO prior to Plaintiff’s arrival. Mike Almond had served as Program Director and morning drive personality on WCOO during this rating period until February 14, 2002. The other ‘selected’ ratings provided by Citadel to Cohn were for 6a-10a (morning drive, the period of Plaintiff’s on air shift). During Feb-Mar-Apr WYBB dropped from 20,200 to 19,400 persons a loss of 800 persons. WCOO dropped from 16,300 to 14,200 a drop of 2100 persons. Between Winter 2001 and Feb-Mar-Apr 2002 WWWZ (then #1 in the market 12+) had lost 900 persons, WEZL #3 12+ in the market had lost 6700 persons, WAVF #6 12 + in the market had lost 1900 persons, WSUY #7 12+ in the market had lost 1800 persons. 6a-10a morning drive Persons 24-54 showed WYBB from 16,500 Winter to 15,800 Feb-Mar-Apr a loss of 700 persons. 6a-10a morning drive Persons 25-54 showed WCOO from 11,900 Winter to 11,000 Feb-Mar-Apr a loss of 900 persons. WYBB remained at 9th place in cume while WCOO changed from 13 to 12th place in cume. 25-54 persons Mon-Sun 6a-Mid showed WYBB 30,800 to 29,100 a loss of 1700 persons while WCOO showed 25,500 to 22,500 a loss of 3000 persons. WYBB slipped from 9th place in cume to 10th place in cume while WCOO held at 12th place in cume. Arbitron defines ‘cume’ as: “The total number of different persons who tune to a radio station during the course of a daypart for at least five minutes.” (Arbitron, Terms For The Trade). No other daypart, even though Plaintiff was responsible for all daypart ratings during Feb-Mar-Apr as Program Director, were provided by the selective process of acquiring ratings without the license to acquire them. Persons 12+ ‘share’ (“The percentage of those listening to radio in the Metro who are listening to a particular radio station.” (Arbitron, Terms For The Trade) for WYBB Winter 2001 was 3.2 Feb-Mar-Apr 2002 was 3.3. WCOO Winter 2001 was 3.5 Feb-Mar-Apr was 3.2. Job performance of Almond had severely affected WCOO’s cume and share audience before Plaintiff arrived.
256. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 16, 2002 a memo (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 98, Document 27) was received from Bruce Musso: “As per my agreement with your supervisor Charlie Cohn, I only respond to engineering request from Mike Allen, Ken French and Charlie Cohn. In the future if Cool 105 suffers from any engineering problem one of the above named personnel will need to contact me. I don’t believe your disk jockeys have the authority to contact me much less authorize work to be performed.”
257. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 18, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett and copied Cohn: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 99, Document 94) Cohn had recommended contacting a white female announcer working part time for Citadel. “I wanted middays to hold down a weekend shift coming off only when a client remote called for her to be live as part of the full time salary and I still think I need a staff member that can relate to 50% of my audience.”
258. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 18, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett and copied Cohn: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 99, Document 94) Cohn had recommended contacting a white female announcer working part time for Citadel. “Charlie, last time we spoke about the midday position, after Trish was eliminated from consideration you mentioned you wanted part time and multi-tasking. I still need a full time person to handle remotes and promotional functions and full production and appearance schedules. I thought it was rather timely that this girl only wants part time and lives a few blocks from the station. She does not want to do remotes (which doesn’t help the John and Lee Remote Show Schedule), does not want to do dubs for a production assignment and seems to not really want to put her all into the station. She is the only person in the market willing to work at that level (with those restrictions and a rather hefty hourly rate, if you ask me)…”
259. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 18, 2002 Plaintiff wrote email to Consultant Hallett and copied Cohn: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 99, Document 94) Cohn had recommended contacting a white female announcer working part time for Citadel. “I would rather have a person who needs some tweaking in delivery (and listensfollowsdirections-and tries) and can keep a tight and error free board and have adeep passion for the station than a person who appears to be treating theposition as a nice place to go play a few hours each day. You had mentioned to me that Citadel had issues with her when you gave me the Citadel phone number to leave a message for her. The contact was made through a third party. I would like to know what those issues are before going any futher in talking with her. I too am a bit concerned about the prima-donna problem. And Don, please rest assured you will indeed be called upon to work your phone magic and dig deep into anyone I consider for a weekday hire.”
260. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 21, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 100, Document 388) Plaintiff issued a written memo to all full and part time staff of WCOO informing them WCOO was no longer permitted to ask for engineering repairs and help.
261. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On June 28, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 101, Document 116) Consultant Hallett wrote Plaintiff: “About two weeks ago I forwarded and 80’s safelist your way. It was a PDF file. I wanted you to do a comparison of titles on the list that we play and those that we don’t that you might like to consider for COOL. Did you overlook it? If you have misplaced it, ask Charlie for a copy of the “Vallie Richards” list. I know he has it. Do be careful with the “80’s options.” Everything must “fit” our music essence.” That list had not been provided to Plaintiff. It was provided to Plaintiff following this message as a list of songs ‘created to be the new ‘Bridge’ radio station, the replacement for COOL’ by Cohn. No mention was made that it came from Hallett and was intended for Plaintiff.
262. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 2, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 102, Document 115) Hallett responded to Plaintiff’s forward of a letter prepared for Cohn and Brooks outlining a suggesting to improve sales at the station. Hallett had been asked if it was worth submitting or would it cause friction. Hallett responded: “I’ve clicked around a bit. It all looks very interesting. I’d recommend you share this with Charlie and Bob soon! I support and commend your efforts. As for “who is the author” thing. Take credit. Only what? 25% of original work gets through a committee? Right? Take it to the committee. How ’bout that 80’s list?”
263. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 2, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 103, Document 375) Plaintiff submitted the suggestion to improve revenue for the station as urged by the Consultant.
264. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 4, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 104, Document 129) Plaintiff to Consultant in email: “I am going to tell you about this… …and then it will be off my chest and I won’t speak about it until I speak to Charlie tomorrow. Yesterday, Bruce removed the good RE20 from the Cool control room and replaced it with the broken one which was placed in the production room. John used it once on the air and then switched it back since it sounds so horrible. Today, on a holiday of all days, Bruce entered the station while part timer Dwight Landon was on the air and barged into the control room, yanked it out of the control room again, and replaced it with a crappy Sennheiser Mic saying something about “mumbles” can deal with it. So tomorrow morning I’ll be working on a mic I can’t use as it has no high end. It will indeed be ‘mumbles’. Whatever he meant by that. The station will sound like crap. How downright comical this whole thing is. Perhaps if I seig heil he would stop trying to destroy Cool. But my soul is not for sale. There. I feel like I’ve done something constructive. But alas… it is just another complaint. I argued with myself in telling anyone about this but since i’m already the complainer…. why not…” Musso proudly displayed a confederate flag from his pick up truck.
265. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 4, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 104, Document 129) A follow up to Consultant Hallett: “Nevermind I spoke to Charlie about it. He knew. I’ll take a mic from the 98Rock room tomorrow to use instead. I’m told Bruce is a weird duck but at least we’re on the air. I still have a fuming part timer to deal with. No more complaining from me. End.”
266. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 8, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 105, Document 155) Plaintiff email to Cohn, Hallett and Almond: “Gentlemen, Since I just received the numbers today I’ve been hard pressed to get this done today and take care of medical sessions this afternoon but it is done for the available numbers I had. I did not calculate 18+ numbers but I will tomorrow. I will also add more stations into the calculations but the results are going to be the same. The file is self explanatory. I would suggest a direct mailing, targeted to different zips for both stations modeled on the one presented at the http://www.cool1055.net/powerpoint/ location under advertising. Both stations need to let people know they exist to get out from under the pressures of small changes in trends making a big difference. We can only do that with much more cume listeners and that comes from getting into people’s faces before we can expect them to put us in the ears. Respectfully Submitted” The PowerPoint presentation was for a direct mailing piece John Majhor and Plaintiff had designed and sought production costs for. Marketing had not been done for WCOO AT ALL due to prohibitions of Cohn. Ratings were not received from Arbitron but from Citadel Communications.
267. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 106, Document 92) Consultant Hallett responded to the ratings report from Plaintiff: “First of all, I haven’t been ignoring you in regard to your evaluation of the ARB trends. The teeter tottered? Low cume? Marketing required? In my assessment tracking COOL with its current cume is really hard on any scale, especially in dayparts. But, I admire your take and your detailed work. Nice job. I reached out to Charlie today on another topic and we had a conflict of schedule and I suspect he might get me in route to another client by car. I’ll be on cellular in the morning from around 8:30-9:00AM until 11:30AM or so. Maybe we can all hook up?” Obviously the Consultant did not feel ‘job performance’ was ‘poor’.
268. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 9, 2002 After the July 4th long weekend, Plaintiff arrived at work at 4:30AM July 8, 2002 and found that ‘traffic’ (office personnel) had not picked up the commercials logs from the long weekend. Plaintiff mentioned that to Sales Manager Brooks who understood that not picking up the logs meant any spots missed were not rescheduled. On July 9, 2002 at 10:45AM Cohn called a meeting in the conference room with Leslie Twigger, traffic manager; Mike Almond, Bob Brooks, Bobby Collins (Spragg) and Plaintiff wherein Cohn started to blame Plaintiff for commercials missed over the long 4th of July weekend. Collins (Spragg) interrupted Cohn and told him that together, both Plaintiff and Collins (Spragg) had worked hard each morning to make up any missed spots and to dub any spots not accomplished by production assigned to air staff. Cohn cut him off and stopped him from talking. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 107, Document 411) the DCS computer (previously having experienced serious outages without proper repairs) had completely died during that time period forcing Collins (Spragg) to place commercials on individual CD’s where Plaintiff played them on the air as scheduled. Plaintiff and Collins (Spragg) had managed to find all available commercials, and accomplish all commercials where scheduled on the air but Cohn insisted it was not a finished issue. He accused Plaintiff of not doing his job and sent Brooks, after the meeting into Plaintiff’s office to literally ‘get mad’ at Plaintiff for failing to have Plaintiff’s staff play required commercials while the commercial computer was not working. That intimidation was not only unwarranted but highly unprofessional and intimidating as Brooks was not in the chain of command of Plaintiff.
269. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 10, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 108, Document 141) Plaintiff sent email to Consultant Hallett and Cohn reminding them that Arbitron had embargoed the ratings and they were not publicly available.
270. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 19, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 109, Document 149) Sales (Brooks) had called Plaintiff at home asking for a proposal immediately to be sent to them. The proposal was created for a sales offering: “for programming to put together a proposal for BellSouth to use for Cool Kids (Mike was kind enough to remember the promotion!!!!!!!) and we had 40 minutes to create it.. THIS is what I came up with from home in 30 minutes and emailed to the station.. Microsoft Publisher file…”
271. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 19, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 110, Document 412) A copy of the promotional calendar for WCOO for July 2002 shows only internal programming related promotions involving no revenue as Cohn had prohibited all station promotions involving WCOO in a direct attempt to effect the ‘job performance’ of the Plaintiff.
272. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 23, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 111, Document 20) In personal notes taken during the morning sales meeting on this date and continued into the meeting wherein Plaintiff was discharged : Sales was notified, with Plaintiff in the room and in total surprise, that finally WCOO would be advertised. Street signs, Magnetic signs, a ‘certified cool’ campaign, taxi-cab signs, with a news trade with a local television station to provide weather and news to the station. All of those things were promotional items or ideas requested and or submitted by Plaintiff over the previous six months.
273. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: On July 23, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 111, Document 20) In personal notes taken during the morning sales meeting on this date and continued into the meeting wherein Plaintiff was discharged : After the sales meeting, Cohn requested the presence of Almond and Plaintiff in his office where he proceeded, at the witness of Almond to discharge plaintiff for the stated reason: “not happy with performance”.
274. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff: Plaintiff was discharged after a long and lengthy list of intimidation tactics, threats, destruction of equipment, attacks on character, refusal to permit the hire of a minority air talent at all, through obstructions and changes in policy and terms of positions available and was subjected to retaliation through these and many other means to attempt to force Plaintiff to resign in a continuous stressful and intolerable work environment. When Plaintiff failed to resign the employer caused the discharge without warrant and reason, without a single written complaint about job performance ever given to Plaintiff (Plaintiff had requested of L.M. Communications in email (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 112, Document 181 dated 8/12/2002 all contents of Plaintiff personnel file. No response ever came from the company,) and in direct affront to the many written statements of the Consultant and the true ratings of the station.
275. The Charleston Post & Courier Newspaper published an article August 10, 2002 about the ratings during the period Plaintiff was claimed to be fired for ‘not happy with performance’. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 113, Document 415) written by Mindy Spar announces that WYBB and WCOO were both tied for 9th place in the coveted 25-54 advertising agency interest category. It is plain that WYBB and WCOO performed equally during the period defendant is claimed to have not been happy with performance, with WYBB following a trend of upward ratings, and WCOO recovering from a trend of downward ratings. WYBB Program Director Mike Almond was not discharged. WYBB Program Director Mike Almond was granted the Operations Manager.
276. It was such a shock to John Majhor (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 114, Document 162) that Plaintiff had been discharged that he stormed out of the building and quit his job as afternoon drive personality. Bob Brooks chased after him into the parking lot. Within days Majhor had been talked into returning and eventually took the Program Director’s position held by Plaintiff.
277. Since Plaintiff was discharged, within days after discharge, all equipment within WCOO’s studio that had been requested to be repaired, replaced or adjusted for nearly six months, repeatedly, causing a detriment to Plaintiff’s ‘job performance’ was repaired, replaced or adjusted.
278. Since Plaintiff was discharged, within days after discharge, cable television with weather radar, prohibited by Cohn causing a detriment to Plaintiff’s ‘job performance’, an aircheck machine (not like the broken boom box Cohn presented to Plaintiff as an aircheck machine), prohibited by Cohn causing a detriment to Plaintiff’s ‘job performance’ and an internet connection, prohibited by Cohn causing a detriment to Plaintiff’s ‘job performance’ was installed in the WCOO control room. Elementary required tools Cohn had prohibited during the period Plaintiff was being subjected to an intolerable work environment as retribution and retaliation for daring to stand up to hire a minority person on a music station playing minority based music in a market where some 30% of the population was minority, immediately were provided to WCOO after Plaintiff was discharged. Cohn had claimed he did not want the Internet in the WCOO control room as he did not want the staff ‘surfing porn’ and the Internet ‘did not work for Cool’. Both John Majhor and Plaintiff were highly offended by the callous ‘porn’ remark made in front of the sale staff.
279. Following participation in an ongoing investigation of allegations of discrimination [a protected activity, see 135 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 42, Document 132) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 72, Document 101)(Plaintiff’s Exhibit 41, Document 424) and 155 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 157 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 54, Document 11) and 158 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369) and 159 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 55, Document 369)], following Thompson’s letter to Martin, March 9, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 16, Document 10) faxed to the Lexington KY main office of LM, LMSC, LMIISC on March 11, 2002: specifically invoking potential violations of EEO law, with favorable comments regarding Plaintiff, following discharge for a reason, being a pretext to cover the retaliation against plaintiff : On July 24, 2002 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 115, Document 88) Plaintiff received another email. This email was sent from the same engineering associate of Musso’s who sent the terrorism inspired threat email months earlier. This contained a single photo of the Plaintiff, taken from the Plaintiff’s personal web site, with the words, ‘A VICTIM OF MUSSO MADNESS’ emblazoned across the image of Plaintiff and an attachment in wav format of the song, (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 116, Document 425, CD 1) “Cryin’ Time Again” edited as the file name, “Bruce’s mixdown”.
280. Plaintiff had participated in five investigation and follow up discussions about a potential EEO complaint, a protected activity, in Participation Clause, in each, providing testimony and argument that Thompson’s complaints were valid. The statutes do not limit, or condition in any way, the protection against retaliation for participating in the anti-discrimination process. While the opposition clause applies only to those who oppose practices that they reasonably and in good faith believe are unlawful, the participation clause applies to all individuals who participate in the statutory complaint process. The reasonableness or validity of the underlying charge is irrelevant.
281. Plaintiff had been the victim of adverse action. Some courts hold that the adverse action be some type of “ultimate employment action”, such as termination, failure to promote, etc., to meet the retaliation definition in the statutes. Other courts require evidence that the terms, conditions, or benefits of employment were adversely affected. Plaintiff was terminated, directly following a continuous campaign of intimidation, hostile working environment, changing conditions and policies, withheld benefits (Plaintiff’s health insurance, negotiated to begin immediately upon employment was withheld, after Cohn ‘lost’ the application for three months) and prohibitive terms.
282. Plaintiff has shown detailed and solid relevant proof of an exclusive causal connection between nearly six months of continuous intimidation, a hostile working environment and retribution and retaliation brought on by involvement in the internal investigatory process of potential pending Equal Employment Opportunity allegations and intended to force Plaintiff to resign. The evidence is direct.
283. Plaintiff opposed discrimination in the highest manner possible, by repeatedly attempting to hire, repeatedly calling for a black female to be hired to present a black presentation to the black audience and repeatedly standing up and agreeing with the allegations made of discrimination by Thompson. Repeated attempts to hire a person who had instructed the employer they were contemplating EEO charges, is opposing discrimination through the most possible method.
284. Plaintiff opposed discrimination by complaining to others, including John Majhor, Consultant Don Hallett, Lynn Martin, Attorney William Allen and Charles Cohn.
285. The manner of opposition was not only reasonable it was the proper and ethical manner of carrying out the duties of a Program Director of a federally licensed radio station. The manner of opposition was within the job description of Program Director. To locate, identify, hire and train qualified air staff.
286. Plaintiff had a reasonable and good faith belief that the opposed practice violated the anti-discrimination laws, was aware of prohibitions of racial discrimination in law, as well as personally opposed such acts prior to employment and during employment, repeatedly. Plaintiff’s action of supporting the allegations of discrimination in interviews with Martin and Allen was to facilitate the protection of the company. Furthermore, following the Thompson March 9, 2002 letter to Lynn Martin: Plaintiff, who received a copy of that letter, along with others, was aware of that person’s notification to the company of such violations and of potential EEO charges. Those taking part in the acts of intimidation, retribution and hostile working conditions also received a copy of that March 9, 2002 letter from Thompson.
287. Plaintiff is protected against retaliation by all defendants for participating in complaint proceedings even if that complaint involved a different covered entity. The person attempted to be hired, a close associate as a former employee of Plaintiff’s management beginning to undergo training for promotion then, the same person, as a potential employee of Plaintiff’s department had indicated a charge might be filed against the company. Thompson filed a charge against the company with the EEOC in Form 5 dated 8/21/02 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 117, Document 6) in which Thompson attested by date and signature, “In fact, a white manager tried to get them to hire me to a full time job and they refused and forced him out”. Thompson’s EEOC complaint was settled by the defendants in May of 2003 although Plaintiff is protected against retaliation regardless of the validity or reasonableness of the original allegation of discrimination.
288. Plaintiff was subjected to severe adverse treatment: considerable intimidation intended to cause Plaintiff to resign and to stop Plaintiff from opposing discrimination by hiring a minority air talent, refusal to permit working tools intended to cause Plaintiff to resign and to stop Plaintiff from opposing discrimination by hiring a minority air talent, refusal to address repairs intended to cause Plaintiff to resign and to stop Plaintiff from opposing discrimination by hiring a minority air talent, refusal to repair unsafe working conditions intended to cause Plaintiff to resign and to stop Plaintiff from opposing discrimination by hiring a minority air talent, refusal to stop intimidation intended to cause Plaintiff to resign and to stop Plaintiff from opposing discrimination by hiring a minority air talent, refusal to permit marketing and promotions for the station intended to cause Plaintiff to resign and to stop Plaintiff from opposing discrimination by hiring a minority air talent and many more detailed in direct evidence in this complaint, all designed to adversely effect the ‘job performance’ of the Plaintiff and continue the discriminatory condition of the employer, culminating in discharge of the position.
289. Plaintiff has shown direct evidence. Direct evidence is in the form of documents from management refusing to end known intimidation, including destruction of work potential and knowingly causing work potential to suffer through direct malicious action, and in the form of documents from employees, agents and representatives of the defendants, as well as in the form of documents from the defendants themselves intended to cause Plaintiff to resign and to stop Plaintiff from opposing discrimination by hiring a minority air talent.
290. There is substantial direct evidence raising an inference that retaliation was the cause of the adverse action. Such an inference is raised if the adverse action took place shortly after the protected activity and if the decision-maker was aware of the protected activity before undertaking the adverse action. The decision maker was aware from February 28, 2002 on, and in control of those actions. The decision maker was aware through emails, telephone calls and management involvement including refusal to stop intimidations, participation in investigatory interviews from both the decision maker and legal counsel, protected activities. Management and counsel were aware of Plaintiff’s agreement and support of the claims made by Thompson in the March 9, 2002 letter to Martin through two interview telephone investigation sessions and in follow up responses to both via fax.
291. Defendants treated similarly situated employees who did not engage in protected activity quite differently.
292. Plaintiff was subjected to heightened scrutiny after he engaged in protected activity: refusal to allow anything to be put into writing; refusal to allow calls to the station owner’s complete area code; the engineer was instructed by agreement with management not to deal with Plaintiff or Plaintiff’s staff and including substantial direct evidence of a continual intimidation and retaliation process.
293. Defendant has produced a binding, non-revocable, non-retaliatory reason for the challenged action, under testimony provided to the EEOC as “unsatisfactory job performance” (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 118, Document 12) which is contained within the EEOC letter for the dismissal of the charge as the sole reason claimed to EEOC in a Federal Investigation for discharge.
SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION
PRETEXT TO HIDE RETALIATORY MOTIVE
294. On March 16, 2004 (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 1, Document 18, right to sue letter) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 118, Document 12, EEOC dismissal letter) the EEOC issued the letter dismissing the charge made by Plaintiff, based solely, at the EEOC’s own admission from information “obtained” by the EEOC from the Defendants. By admission of the EEOC, at no time was information provided to the EEOC by Plaintiff considered in this ruling. Such information was referred to as “Other than your verbiage, no evidence was presented that shows your intent to hire minorities especially Black Females or that you opposed the station’s failure to hire minorities.” (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 119, Document 5). Plaintiff’s Form 5, stamped by EEOC shows EEOC typed in, after receipt, that the charge was forwarded to The South Carolina Human Affairs Commission. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 120, Document 328) is a letter from The South Carolina Human Affairs Commission, wherein they state: 1/21/04 “A review of our records do not show that your charge was filed in this office.” (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 117, Document 6) is Patricia Thompson’s original Form 5 signed and dated 8/21/2002 in which she states under signature; “In fact, a white manager tried to get them to hire me to a full time job and they refused and forced him out”.
295. Station performance is directly related to Arbitron Ratings for the market which were embargoed and not available until after the discharge took place and then had increased in that trend over the previous trend. WCOO had undergone a frequency change that was not announced to the public so any ratings following that change in frequency were due in a great part to the public’s not knowing if the station still existed. Since advertising was prohibited by management and promotions, even those approved by the sales manager for revenue and the Consultant, were rejected by management no ability was present to tell the public of the station’s frequency change or its new ‘sound’. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 113, Document 415) Charleston Post & Courier writing on August 10, 2002, speaking of “The spring 2002 Arbitron ratings are in” lists “The top 10 list among listeners 25-54 looks like this:” Tied for 9. WYBB-FM 98.1 and WCOO-FM 105.5. Both owned by L.M. Communications.” Yet the program director of WYBB was not fired for the same time period, as Spring 2002 was the ONLY rating period the plaintiff was given the opportunity to be judged and those ratings were embargoed at the time of the discharge. Mindy Sparr, Post & Courier Reporter further said, “Conversely, Citadel, LM Communications (WYBB-FM 98.1 and WCOO-FM 105.5) and Jabar Communications (WJNI-FM 106.3 and WWBZ-FM 98.9) all have shown increases in market share over the past year.”
296. In the Winter 2002 plaintiff had just arrived and changes did not take place at WCOO until the end of the Winter 2001 ratings period. Charleston Post & Courier writing on May 19, 2002 in 25-54 adults, “Rounding out the top 10 is WCOO-FM 105.5 (Cool 105.5) and WRFQ-FM 104.5 (Q104.5.)”.
297. Specific break-outs for Spring 2002, with the Lee Kent In The Morning Show in morning drive and efforts underway to destroy the ratings by management at WCOO, placed 35+ black females in a 30 share range for the show.
298. The complaint filed with EEOC by Plaintiff stated the following in the charge text: (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 119, Document 5) “I was subjected to discriminatory terms and conditions of employment, harassed, denied employment, subjected to a hostile religious and retaliatory work environment, denied employment and discharged from my full time position because of retaliation for my attempt to offer equal employment ability in hiring of minorities, complaining about the refusal of management to consider minorities for full time positions and objecting to and requesting management’s intervention to stop harassment directed at me in the workplace and out of the workplace which “contributed to the hostile environment” experienced at work in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended. A: Retaliatory Intimidation I was subjected to included: 1: Threatening emails while employed. 2: Threatening email after discharge. 3: Threatening anti-Semitic terrorist photo sent in email. 4: Refusal to permit the carrying out of my job responsibilities. 5: Blame for lost commercial revenue. 6: Sabotage of work performed. 7: Public humiliation and character assassination. 8: Humiliation to staff by management. 9: Attempts to trick me into violating corporate policy. 10: Sabotage of transmitter power to damage performance. 11: Sabotage of station audio processing to damage performance. 12: Sabotage of program elements for my morning show. 13: I AND my wife were ordered not to access any phone number in the Lexington KY area code. 14: Refusal to permit work tools. (Supplied after I was discharged.) 15: Called a liar repeatedly. 16: Insulted continuously behind my back. 17: Ignoring every instance reported by me of alleged illegal activity. 18: Receipt of edited audio music file obviously claiming responsibility for my discharge. 19: Equipment was damaged. 20: Notices of unsafe working conditions were ignored. 21: Music scheduling software was tampered with. 22: Attack continued after employment. 23: Penalized for wanting to improve the midday show by reducing the show to part time if I wanted to replace the current staff member. 24: Rumors and innuendos. 25: Threatened with legal action. 26: Refusal to repair equipment. 27: Replacing equipment with inferior parts. 28: Hatred for ‘black’ music. 29: Branded a ‘complainer’. 30: Intimidation of new employee before starting date. 31: Software was deleted from production equipment. 32: Given a broken ‘boom box’ to suffice for an aircheck machine. 33: Retaliation for stopping ‘Plugola’ on the air. 34: Continual reference to changing format. 35: Phone call from engineer yelling about a memo I was told to write asking for his help in changing microphones. 36: Show prep stolen from my desk. 37: Equipment in my desk was damaged. 38: Given a non-working phone for my desk. 39: Ethics questioned. 40: Interruptions on the ‘hotline’ while doing my show. 41: Tampering with the station’s Legal ID 42: Given worst computer in the building for my desk. 43: Degradation of my wife for having spoken to Lynn Martin. II: The reason I was given for discharge was “poor performance of the station” however the Arbitron ratings results for the period in question showed “significant gains” according to Mindy Spar, entertainment writer for the Charleston Post & Courier. I tried repeatedly to hire a minority person full time but was forced out of my employment for doing so. III: I believe I have been discriminated against because of my religion, Jewish, and in retaliation for complaining about discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended. IV: At-Will employment does not apply as an implied contract was in force. V: Furthermore, the company discriminates against Blacks as a class relative to hiring, job assignments, wages, promotions, transfers, discipline and discharge and discriminates against those who object to such actions and discriminates against those who attempt to correct such actions.”
299. The EEOC’s own documentation claims: “Persons who file a charge, oppose unlawful employment discrimination, participate in employment discrimination proceedings, or otherwise assert their rights under the laws enforced by the Commission are protected against retaliation. ” The documentation further states: “Employers must provide a workplace that is free of harassment based on national origin, ethnicity, or religion. They may be liable not only for harassment by supervisors, but also by coworkers or by non-employees under their control. Employers should clearly communicate to all employees – through a written policy or other appropriate mechanism – that harassment such as ethnic slurs or other verbal or physical conduct directed toward any racial, ethnic, or religious group is prohibited and that employees must respect the rights of their coworkers.” No such communication was provided by the Defendant, prior to or during Plaintiff’s employment.
300. Management was informed both orally and in writing and responded both orally and in writing by refusing to stop the offensive harassment by a ‘then’ employee. That employee, Bruce Musso and his associate (both radio engineers affiliated with the same independent contractor) acted on the behalf of Charlie Cohn, General Manager, who refused to stop the harassment.
301. A ‘non-station employee’ is a contract worker. “They may be liable not only for harassment by supervisors, but also by coworkers or by non-employees under their control.” The contract worker was under their control as an office was provided to him, a specific time was set for his duties, his office was not accessible under lock and key by any personnel other than the ‘chief operator’ (Almond) and the ‘general manager’ (Cohn) and his income was never reported to the IRS. And, the computer used to transmit all email threats and intimidations was the same computer using different access accounts. “Harassment based on religion, national origin, or race is not just inappropriate; it violates federal law. It is a violation of both Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which forbids discrimination in employment and educational activities on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, and sex.” Severe, persistent, or pervasive religious, ethnic, or racial slurs and other verbal or physical conduct relating to an individual’s religion, national origin, or race constitute harassment when such conduct: has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment; has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance; or otherwise adversely affects an individual’s ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or privileges provided that work environment.” An Anti-Semitic threatening terrorist inspired email and signing an intimidation email as a Fascist (“a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader,” (C)1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated) dictator aligned with Adolph Hitler is severe and pervasive religious and racial conduct relating to Plaintiff’s religion and constitutes harassment as it was intended for the purpose of effecting the working environment and causing Plaintiff to resign through emotional distress.
302. The issue of religious discrimination was raised in the complaint due to acts of threatening emails received from an employee, using his own and that of another’s Internet connection that management refused to force said employee to stop harassment.
303. Complaints by two employees were unfounded and unwarranted and justifiable cause for insubordinate discharge and were attempts to reverse the intimidation and threats and destruction of property and sabotage of equipment and refusal to perform job tasks and refusal to permit promotions and refusal to permit advertising and refusal to replace defective equipment and refusal to stop harassment and refusal to stop violating plugola laws, AFTER the ownership and its legal counsel were advised by Patricia Thompson that she would invoke her rights under EEO law, a protected activity, and directed at intimidation and ‘building a case’ to force Plaintiff to resign to find a method whereby discharge would be possible, as a pretext to cover up said acts at the direction of Cohn. At no time was Plaintiff provided with any management written complaint and at no time was any record ever placed in a personnel file of Plaintiff to Plaintiff’s knowledge.
304. All comments by the EEOC investigator are disputed in documentation received by the EEOC, but not referenced in EEOC’s judgment and placed in direct evidence within this complaint, including (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 122, Document 400), the cover letter sent to EEOC with the Form 5 submission; (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 123, Document 38), the case brief submitted to EEOC with the Form 5 submission.
305. Cohn refused to admonish Grumbine for her complaint letter and tore up the aircheck letter in a meeting with Logan and Plaintiff, in Plaintiff’s ‘face’. There being ‘legal issues’ with Grumbine was constantly used as one of the excuses not to hire a Black Female full time at the black music station to replace Grumbine. With Grumbine’s complaint letter written after other events shown in detailed evidence within this complaint and closely resembling Morath’s complaint, written the same day it was received, Grumbine’s letter of complaint was clearly intended to further intimidation and further retaliation against Plaintiff. Morath was eventually fired after the company had been paying him for remote broadcasts, under the table, making payments to his girlfiend, who did not work for the company, in order to skirt Morath’s disability claim and after Lynn Martin finally agreed to permit the hiring of a full time experienced professional to replace Morath in afternoon drive. Morath, who claimed to be under doctor’s order to work 3 hours per day or less had written station consultant Don Hallett asking for a full time job in morning drive, before plaintiff was hired.
306. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 124, Document 150, Plaintiff’s Exhibit 125, Document 151, Plaintiff’s Exhibit 126, Document 161) Consultant Don Hallett, in email after plaintiff’s discharge: “Yes, I knew LM had made this decision. I am sorry, but I was not at liberty to give you a heads up. What difference would it have made? Either way, I’m sorry this has happened…. I’m here if you would like to talk. Let me know what you’d like to do next and I will assist in anyway that I can.” Not quite the response from a respected radio consultant and wonderful programmer to have made if the circumstances were as claimed by Defendants.
307. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 114, Document 162) Receptionist Denise Moseley (the only other black employee at the station and the person EEOC claims: “promote another Black Female you did not have time to train” (who was literally screamed at by Charlie Cohn for daring to take training during working hours) said in email on July 23, 2002 “I want to be able to keep in touch with you so for now I will use email and I will email you with any messages etc from here, same for John. I love you and John dearly if you need anything let me know. Denise P.S. Joel sends his love.” Joel Barnes was a salesman at the time at the station. ‘John’ refers to John Majhor who stormed out of the building and ‘quit’ the moment he heard plaintiff was fired. He later returned to take the Program Director’s position.
308. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 128, Document 164) On July 24, 2002, part-time WCOO air talent Dwight Lane wrote email: “Lee, I’m saddened about what happened and i know it was’nt deserving, but if I can help please give me a call!”
309. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 129, Document 165) After plaintiff had become involved in supporting the 437th air-wing at Charleston Air Force Base and produced a song for them, heard by thousands of people world-wide, including the Pentagon, Pat Mize of the Base wrote on 24, Jul 2002: “I can’t tell you how sorry I am to hear that some idiot let you go. Do you have any prospects? I know you must have a lot of contacts in the industry and you have a tremendous voice, brains and talent so I know you’ll be okay. I know you know that there is injustice in life, but try to remember 2 things: 1. Everything you do in life comes back to you (that applies to EVERYONE, if you get my drift) 2. When one door closes in life, another one opens. Take care my friend, and if there’s anything I can do, please don’t hesitate to let me know. Have faith, Pat”
310. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 130, Document 426) John Majhor wrote this email on 15 Aug 2002: in part, “Sounds like LM is going to have some “‘splainin’ to do, Lucy”! Charlie, again, asked someone in the promo meeting…”got any black sales guys for us yet?”.. .I wasn’t paying any attention to who it was.”
311. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 131, Document 188) On 17 Aug 2002 part-time air talent Mark Scott wrote email: “Forgive me for not contacting you sooner!! I have meant to since you “left”…and feel bad for neglecting it. Ill tell you that I dont know, and dont NEED to know the particulars of why youre gone, but John DID explain to me about HOW they did it. THAT SUCKS!! I was sorry to see them do that. I wanted to thank you, Lee, for helping me get back in the business. I know that I have a lot of work ahead of me, to get back up to speed, so to speak, if Im going to come back full time, but, This gives me the chance to do that work. Lee,I know there isnt much I can do for you, but if there is, all you have to do is holler!! I feel confident that you wont have much trouble finding another job around here! Even if it IS with “corporate radio”…lol Thanks again, sir…….Id work with you any time!! Mark Scott Tucker”
312. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 132, Document 189) On August 19, 2002 former Station Manager of WYBB, Ken French had this to say in email: “I am going to drive to Chapel Hill this afternoon and do a site visit for an upcoming Lennon art show. I should be back Wednesday. Call me, if you’d like. It was good to see you last Monday at Bull and Finch. You’re a good man. ken “
313. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 133, Document 225) On September 04, 2002 Patricia Thompson wrote Billy C. Sanders of EEOC and told him: “I know what these people did to Lee … my God Billy, what’s going to happen to me next?”
314. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 134, Document 231) (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 135, Document 233) Email from a listener on 04 Sep 2002: “Hey Lee, how come you’re not on WCOO anymore? I finally tracked ya down to ask you, but I just miss ya on the morning drive!” Responded with “Thank you for asking. I was fired.” Replied: “Ack! I am so sorry to hear that! You were my favorite morning DJ, the best they ever had there. Well, I wish you well on your endeavours, and I hope to hear you on the radio again soon! Sincerely, David Blanchard”
315. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 136, Document 428) On July 28, 2002 Dan Williams, sales representative for WCOO-WYBB wrote a reference letter for the plaintiff’s job seeking process: “It is my pleasure to offer my thoughts and words concerning Lee Kent. During the period of time that I was fortunate enough to work with Lee, I found him to be an energetic, far sighted, and totally dedicated individual. Lee appeared to me to be fair in his relationships with all members of our staff, both those who worked for him and those, like myself, whose contact with him was to work toward building client relationships and public awareness of our station. I know from personal experience that Lee worked tirelessly in his efforts to both upgrade the professionalism of our station and build community trust. I have been in our rather “unique” industry for over 30 years. Having held positions in programming, sales, and management, I am confident in saying that Lee Kent is one of the most qualified radio management persons I have ever encountered. I am pleased to offer my highest recommendation of him… Dan Williams Senior Account Manager, Director NTR”
316. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 138, Document 430) On July 28, 2002 John Majhor wrote a letter of reference and said the following, in part: “When the position at WCOO-FM here in Charleston came open, he wrote me and asked if I would be interested. Over the next month, we talked and I eventually accepted. That was this past April. We share very much the same programming philosophies and during his tenure at WCOO-FM, we had not one single disagreement or dispute. I found Lee to be incredibly dedicated, focused and fair, even when dealing with a number of very unprofessional acts by a variety of co-workers and superiors. I won’t go into detail, because I trust none of these people will ever work for you. Lee allows a pro to be a pro. He gives guidance when necessary and expects one to be diligent with their own issues. He’s loyal to a fault and is a straight-shooter. He does not suffer fools at all. (This is where we had some great fun at times, as I am adept at suffering fools gladly and we’d play good cop, bad cop when necessary). He balks at people who play politics for their own gain at the expense of others, and is not averse to giving them a dose of their own medicine, if necessary. He detests prejudice and injustice of any kind (and I have witnessed this first-hand). He loves to focus on community and you can bet his radio stations will do the same. Lee is brilliantly creative and incredibly passionate about his work. I’ll tell you a secret about Lee. Although he’ll hit you with his vast scientific analysis and mathematically oriented strategies, he can’t help but get emotionally involved in the projects he loves.”
317. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 139, Document 431) On July 29, 2002 Denise Moseley wrote the following reference letter: “I met Lee Kent a little less than a year ago in my role as administrative assistant and part time air talent (thanks to Lee) for Cool 105.5. During that time I have had the privilege of witnessing a true professional at work. Lee is very knowledgeable about radio and he knows and understands what it takes to succeed. Above all else he is not afraid to succeed. I have no doubt that Lee Kent would be an asset to any station that would have the for sight to add him to their team. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact me. Denise Mosley”
318. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 140, Document Lane) On 29 July 2003 Dwight Lane wrote the following reference letter: “As a partime air personality, I’ve known Lee for six months and during that time he has done an outstanding job and is especially adept and knowledgeable in radio programming. He continually demonstrated his managerial skills and genuine concern for improving L&M Communications and especially WCOO. Due to his experience, I have found him to be a loyal dedicated and unique individual, capable of handling any task. Lee is a true professional outstanding motivator, and role model. Highly skilled leader and manager, Lee’s effectiveness and equitable performance promote team effort and spirit. I really have not seen someone like Lee who can skillfully blend management with technical expertise. He will be missed, and don’t pass up the opportunity to snare someone of Lee’ abilities and assets. Truly a professional example for others to emulate.”
319. (Plaintiff’s Exhibit 141, Document 170) On July 28, 2002 Patricia Thompson wrote the following reference letter for Plaintiff: “Ms. Aidoo, First let me personally welcome you to the Charleston Radio Market. Welcome, it is a pleasure to have you here! ;o) I have heard a great deal of wonderful things about you from Mr. Lee Kent, and his enthusiasim, insight and vision has reinspiried my outlook on radio in the Charleston market. I’d like to share a piece of my heart and mind with you in regard to Mr. Kent and pray that you give what I share with you your utmost consideration while you go through your decision making process in effort to bringing MEGA 100 to its full on-air capacity. First, and by far, Mr. Kent is a true and consummate professional. I hope you can appreciate when I state that, it’s truly a breath of fresh air to be associated, in any endeavor, with such a professional of Mr. Kent’s caliber. And, just as refreshing as it is, I’m sure you are aware that it’s also very rare. Mr. Kent’s vision, coupled with his vast experience, knowledge and long time radio perspective is only surpassed by his work ethic, business knowledge, and managerial expertise. Ms. Aidoo, I know I’m baking a six layer cake here, but the thoughts I possess of this man and that I graciously share with you, do not come from me lightly, I assure you. However, when I think of all the wonderful things I could fill your eyes and ears up with in regard to Mr. Kent, if I had to just narrow it down to one thing about Mr. Kent that strikes me the most, I would have to say it’s his passion for people. And along with that comes integrity, honesty, trustworthyness, and relentlessness. Need I say more, Ms. Aidoo? I certainly can and will if you’d like me to, but Mr. Kent is a man whose actions are enough to speak for his professionalism and character. I pray that you will highly consider Mr. Kent for the position of General Manager with Caswell Communications, Inc., and allow him to manifest on your behalf, the behalf of the community, the Charleston market and beyond, and become a valued, regarded member of your team as you grow into the “MEGA” Millennium. Hurry, before I purchase my own station (smile)!!! Thank you for your time Ms. Aidoo. Take care. Respectfully, Patricia (Trish) Thompson Executive Administrative Assistant Millie Lewis International & The American Modeling & Talent Convention; Former Radio Announcer, Charleston Market 843-709-1089”
320. Pay rates were established by the station management. Not the Program Director. Part-time staff was not paid more than $7.00 or $7.50 per hour, Plaintiff was told, by Charlie Cohn. Thompson demanded $10.00 an hour in her resignation letter. Plaintiff found a pay slip wherein it was evident that ONLY Grumbine had been paid $9.00 an hour as a part-timer. There were three primary day parts on the station. Mornings was plaintiff’s shift. Afternoons was filled with a person who was not qualified for a professional position in modern radio and middays was filled with a person who had been fired by the station once before for rummaging through files to find other employee’s salaries. The midday person was promoting her own DJ service on the air in a blatant plugola violation with the station not having payola, plugola signed statements on hand for all staff until plaintiff required the signatures. Afternoon drive required a professional who did not need training to bring the station closer to professional. John Majhor had served as morning drive and other important day parts in major markets of both the U.S. and Canada and had become a friend of plaintiff’s through email correspondence. Consultant Don Hallett congratulated plaintiff when he heard Majhor had been secured for a primary day shift. Middays was to be replaced with a minority female to better serve the music being played and the audience desired for the format. The two positions were not in competition with each other and are completely different targeting concepts. The chance of hiring a person of John Majhor’s caliber comes very rarely in a market the size of Charleston S.C. And that position had no relevance to the middays Thompson was being considered for. The amount of money possible for middays was never completely discussed with Cohn, as once it appeared to Cohn that Plaintiff was not giving up on having a black female full time in middays he instructed that if Grumbine was to be ‘let go’ the position would become ‘part-time’ which eliminated hiring anyone of talent.
321. It is proven, in detailed documentation that Defendants have put forth, in a Federal investigation, a pretext to cover up their blatant intimidation and retribution for retaliation resulting in discharge. Such pretext is an effort or strategy intended to conceal the real reason which was to culminate the continuous retaliation in a direct adverse action which was reasonably likely to deter employees from engaging in protected activity.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff LEE KENT HEMPFLING prays for judgment as follows:
As to Plaintiff’s FIRST through SECOND CAUSES OF ACTION:
1. Compensatory damages to the fullest extend allowed by law for each Defendant;
2. Back pay from July 23, 2002 to date of filing this complaint, estimated to be $86,535.00. ;
3. Front pay from the date of filing of this complaint until age 65 of Plaintiff, as Defendant demanded a pledge of ‘staying until retirement’ before offering the position to Plaintiff and Plaintiff accepted the position with the guarantee that ‘we do not fire management’ and a place of employment at an advanced age for the industry through retirement, which was subsequently repeated by Consultant Don Hallet in two separate station visits acting on the behalf of Martin. Plaintiff’s radio career is no longer viable at age 51. Estimated $700,000.00
4. Punitive damages in an amount to be determined by the Jury to discourage any further such acts by the Defendants and to display to all present and future employees participation in protected activity will not bring retaliation.
5. Prejudgment interest as allowed by law;
6. Attorneys’ fees as allowed by law;
7. Plaintiff demands trial by jury;
8. Costs of suit incurred herein; and
9. For such other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.
Dated this 30th day of April, 2004
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Lee Kent Hempfling
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