Ed Henry rape accuser adds more claims about when Fox News learned of his alleged misconduct

The woman who accused former Fox News star Ed Henry of raping her in 2017 is doubling down on her claims that Fox News knew about his alleged misconduct against multiple women years before he was fired, and did nothing about it.

Jennifer Eckhart, a former Fox Business producer who filed a civil suit in July naming Henry and Fox News, on Monday amended the lawsuit to push back against Fox News' denial of wrongdoing.

Fox News responded to the original lawsuit by denying that anyone had raised sexual harassment concerns about Henry prior to Eckhart in June 2020. “There were no sexual harassment claims against Ed Henry at Fox News prior to Jennifer Eckhart’s claim on June 25, 2020,” the network's statement to USA TODAY said in July.

Eckhart's amended lawsuit alleges that this denial is not true. "The new allegations make clear that Fox News’ blanket denials are untruthful, and we look forward to taking discovery in this case to learn even more,” said one of her lawyers, Michael Willemin, in a statement to USA TODAY.

Eckhart cited the alleged experiences of multiple women, some of them named, who claim they were sexually harassed by Henry or engaged in sex with him out of fear of losing their jobs at the cable news channel, and their careers.

Fox News issued a statement to USA TODAY late Monday that reiterated its earlier response to Eckhart's lawsuit: that there were no claims against Henry at Fox prior to June 2020.

“Upon first learning of the allegations, we promptly commenced an independent investigation and took immediate action, firing Mr. Henry within six days of the notification on July 1, 2020," the statement said.

"FOX News takes all claims of harassment, misconduct and retaliation extremely seriously and maintains a zero tolerance policy that is strictly enforced throughout the company which is why Mr. Henry was fired within days of Ms. Eckhart’s complaint.”

In October, Henry filed a motion seeking to dismiss Eckhart's lawsuit, arguing that her claims he raped her are "malicious and defamatory." His lawyers say she sent Henry "erotic and encouraging text messages," along with salacious and explicit pictures of herself, suggesting she pursued "a consensual relationship" with him.

Eckhart rejected that argument last month. "No man is entitled to violently rape a woman because she sent him consensual-looking text messages," she told USA TODAY in a statement.

In the amended Eckhart lawsuit, one of the women named, media relations professional Brooke Hammerling, says she met Henry when he worked at CNN and described his aggressive sexual "moves," which she declined.

"I felt like swatting him away like a fly," Hammerling is quoted as saying in the lawsuit. "He was not someone that would directly impact my job so I didn’t really care."

But she said publicly, in a tweet in August after Henry was fired on July 1 and after the original lawsuit was filed three weeks later, that Fox News had to know all about what she claims was widely known by "women in the communications industry."

“No chance @foxnews didn’t know about Ed Henry," her tweet read. "He was a menace to many of us on the [communication's] side when he was at @cnn and everyone talked about it. Literally so so so gross.”

Another named woman, Roxie Marroquin, who says she met Henry in 2015 when she was 25, invited Henry to meet because she was seeking a mentor in the TV industry. At the time, Henry was the chief White House correspondent for Fox.

They agreed to meet in a Las Vegas hotel, she agreed to go to his room and then agreed to disrobe and get into a bathtub with him where he groped her and she "submitted to the pressure" of his "advances."

“I was honestly kind of afraid and frozen," she is quoted as saying in the complaint. "I felt trapped, in a way, like, ‘oh man, did I give this person the wrong impression? What happens if I don’t do this?’...So, I ended up getting in the bathtub. Fully nude. How this happens to a 25-year-old, I can’t explain, besides fear of rejecting him.”

Later, she says, Henry began to fear she would report him and began sending her threatening messages. She claims Henry sent a private investigator to warn her to “keep her mouth closed,” and who told her he knew where she lived and that Henry would sue her if she talked.

But the lawsuit doesn't say whether she told anyone in Fox News management about these alleged encounters nor does it explain how the network managers would have learned of them otherwise.

The lawsuit claims that Fox was long aware of misconduct under its roof starting in mid-2016 when the network brought in an outside law firm to investigate sexual harassment arising from allegations against the late Roger Ailes, then the network chief, and former star anchor Bill O'Reilly.

"During the investigations, multiple women came forward to complain that Mr. Henry had engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct towards them," the complaint says. "These women came forward to complain before Ms. Eckhart was raped by Mr. Henry" allegedly in a New York hotel in 2017.

Another woman Eckhart names in the complaint is Liz Claman, a Fox Business anchor for whom Eckhart once worked as an assistant. According to Eckhart, in 2016, after Henry was suspended by Fox for four months because of an affair with a Las Vegas stripper, Claman told her: "Everyone at Fox News knows that Henry is a sex addict. That’s no secret.”

In her amended complaint, Eckhart accuses Claman of forcing Eckhart to perform humiliating tasks, such as cleaning out her refrigerator, and addressing her in a demeaning and belittling manner. Eckhart also was offended that Claman would undress in front of her in her office and walk around in "nothing but underwear."

USA TODAY reached out to Claman for comment through Fox News.

Eckhart's amended lawsuit features allegations against Henry from "Jane Does" who later shared their stories with Eckhart. "Jane Doe 1," currently an associate producer for Fox News in Washington, is quoted in the amended lawsuit accusing Henry of sending her a picture of his penis soon after they met.

"Despite being warned about Mr. Henry’s lascivious behavior, Ms. Doe 1 entered into a relationship with Mr. Henry, seduced by his senior position and high profile, all enabled by Fox News," the complaint says. "Ms. Doe 1 has described her relationship with Mr. Henry as emotionally abusive. She further stated that she was 'taken advantage of because I was much younger than him. There was a power imbalance.'"

After Eckhart filed her lawsuit, Jane Doe 1 tweeted her support. The complaint accuses a Fox News human resources executive of calling her and attempting to intimidate her for publicly supporting Eckhart.

Eckhart says in her complaint that in February, after she complained about a toxic environment at Fox, she was put on a “Performance Improvement Plan” and eventually fired, even though she had up to then received numerous positive performance reviews.

“The amended complaint lays out how Fox News attempted to bury its head in the sand and refused to take appropriate action to protect its female employees, including Ms. Eckhart, all in the name of its bottom line," Eckhart's lawyer, Willemin, said in his statement.

In July, after Eckhart and Cathy Areu, who appeared as a guest on Fox, filed a joint lawsuit (they have since been separated), Fox issued a lengthy statement in response, assertingbased on findings by an independent investigation, that all of Areu's allegations against Fox were "false, patently frivolous and utterly devoid of any merit.

"We take all claims of harassment, misconduct and retaliation seriously, promptly investigating them and taking immediate action as needed — in this case, the appropriate action based on our investigation is to defend vigorously against these baseless allegations," the statement said. "Ms. Areu and Jennifer Eckhart can pursue their claims against Ed Henry directly with him, as FOX News already took swift action as soon as it learned of Ms. Eckhart’s claims on June 25 and Mr. Henry is no longer employed by the network.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ed Henry accuser adds more claims about what Fox News knew, and when