NY Post Reports Of More 'Animal House' Behavior At The Former CBS/New York Cluster

Dan Taylor

It was just over a month ago (NET NEWS 7/19) when ALL ACCESS reported ENTERCOM Sports WFAN-A-F/NEW YORK midday host JOE BENIGNO had been accused of sexual harassment by a former Account Executive, who claimed, "WFAN was run like a frat house, with drinking by employees starting as early as 10 a.m. and executives condoning buying prostitutes for ad clients."

LAUREN LOCKWOOD worked as an Account Executive at the station from 2006 until JULY of last year, and claims in a lawsuit that middayer JOE BENIGNO pressured her into having a threesome. BENIGNO “whispered in [LOCKWOOD’s] ear about having ‘threesomes’ with him and his wife and prostitutes,” the suit claims. “BENIGNO showed [LOCKWOOD] a nude photo of his wife with a prostitute and propositioned [LOCKWOOD] to join him, his wife and a prostitute in sexual intercourse,” according to the complaint.

Now, more shocking news has leaked, with THE NEW YORK POST noting former Oldies WCBS-F PD JOE MCCOY's son CRAIG LENTI claims middayer DAN TAYLOR made numerous inappropriate comments. The paper writes, "LENTI was forced to endure TAYLOR calling a fellow on-air personality a 'f–king Jew bastard,' referring to a marketing manager as a 'dyke' and describing a potential co-worker as “faggy,' he claims in contemporaneous notes made in a daily diary he kept -- which was submitted to CBS RADIO’s human resources in 2007 as part of a hostile workplace complaint."

The report adds, "TAYLOR, who hosts a daily 10 a.m.-to-3 p.m. show on WCBS-FM 101.1, would also avoid discussing OPRAH WINFREY and other black celebrities on-air, LENTI alleged in the diary, a copy of which was reviewed by THE POST. 'That was the sick genius of it all. He never really let on about who he really is until you were in the studio with him. Once that [studio] door closed, all bets were off'."  

THE POST continued, "LENTI hoped his well-kept record of TAYLOR’s mephitic mutterings would result in HR ordering the DJ to stop -- but it didn’t. 'When I went to HR, [the company’s] excuse was he didn’t know that I was bi, gay, whatever you want to call it, and he didn’t specifically target me'. '[TAYLOR] pointed his finger at me and told me that if I had a problem with how he was behaving, I should have told him directly',”

LENTI was laid off just before CHRISTMAS 2013. Last NOVEMBER, he posted this to his FACEBOOK page:

Entercom's In-House Reponse

An internal memo from ENTERCOM Regional Pres./Market Manager SUSAN LARKIN to the staff  discussed the NEW YORK POST story, noting that all of the allegations were at least six years old and occurred under different management and ownership. What's more, the allegations included numerous factual inaccuracies and an "egregious mischaracterization of our culture that is fundamentally inconsistent with our organization today and the values we share."

The POST story didn't note "the significant positive changes ENTERCOM made since our merger with CBS RADIO closed less than a year ago," she wrote. "Since then, we conducted an employee survey to better understand your views on our culture and areas for improvement ... we have moved quickly to increase the number of women in leadership and literally knocked down walls to foster a positive culture of collaboration focused on delivering great results. Since the merger with CBS RADIO, ENTERCOM has significantly increased the number of women in market leadership positions across the country. 

"While all of the alleged incidents mentioned in the story occurred well before ENTERCOM assumed operations, we take allegations of this nature very seriously.:

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