MAUREEN CALLAHAN: ‘Predator’ T.J. Holmes exposes what a farce the #MeToo industry really is

How does TJ Holmes get away with it?

Another young woman has now come forward, claiming that Holmes, then her superior at ABC News, used her sexually and threw her aside.

This seems like a pattern for Holmes, who is nonetheless getting soft-focus treatment from the mainstream media and a #MeToo industrial complex that is otherwise pounced on by sexual predators in the workplace. .

Since his affair with co-host Amy Robach was revealed on MailOnline last fall, there has been a trickle of women coming forward to say he took advantage of them. As is often the case, where there is one abuse of power there is another, and another, and another.

How many other young women did Holmes sexually exploit in the workplace? My guess is more than we know.

As MailOnline exclusively reported last month, a different employee, identified as Jasmin Pettaway, was 24, 13 years younger than Holmes, when she worked at ABC News. She had expected Holmes to be a mentor.

Instead, it was sex in his office until Holmes got bored and dumped it.

An anonymous source, who knew Pettaway well at the time, claimed that Holmes “was a predator who took full advantage of his position.”

Speaking to The Cut, the latter woman, identified only as Sascha, says she was 27 and working the night shift in 2014 when Holmes started getting close to her. He was married, but his rising star status, coupled with his considerable charm, was hard to resist.

Holmes, Sascha said, seemed to be “the only person in the building who took me seriously.” He took a ‘crazy amount of interest’ in her, flirting over email.

“I’m learning a lot about you,” Holmes wrote. ‘I might actually like you.’

Heady stuff for a junior employee exhausted from a 9 pm to 5 am schedule that left no room for appointments or any kind of social life. Her work was brave, but his was glamorous, and her attention and affection were a great help to Sascha. Her sexual relationship began in an Upper West Side hotel and went downhill from there, hookups mostly relegated to, where else? – Her office.

Think about that: a network star having young female employees come into his office, door closed and locked, then emerge flushed and disheveled.

The New York Post spoke with a source who reported seeing a “junior staffer” leave Holmes’s office in 2015 looking like a “deer in headlights.”

Sascha said she was surprised to read that report and recognize that this young woman was her, that a coworker had watched her and seen her as some kind of victim.

The message Holmes was sending, in my mind, is crystal clear: This newsroom is mine, I’ll take whoever I want when I want, and I’ll do as little as possible to hide it.

The idea that Holmes’ bosses had no idea what he was doing is laughable. This comes from years ago.

Multiple sources also told MailOnline that another young woman, an intern, was left “stressed out” and “scared” by his repeated advances. And no one is lower in the ranks or has less power than an intern.

How was Holmes allowed to predate for so long? Have network news executives learned nothing from Matt Lauer, who was fired in 2017 amid allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse that included rape?

To be clear, Holmes isn’t accused of anything quite so vile, but make no mistake: Predatory acts by a superior in the workplace are damaging and scarring. They affect career paths. How many young women retire instead of navigating these things? Or receive a black ball? Or are they incapable of doing their best under such undue stress, unspoken and tolerated by higher-ups?

Pettaway, now an award-winning casting producer and lifestyle brand founder, left ABC after two years to return to Cleveland, where she worked for a local affiliate. The “toxic work environment” at ABC News in New York City, she said, “really hurt my self-esteem.”

The women at ABC News, according to this report, were concerned that sleeping with their male superiors was the best and often the only way to rise through the ranks. How deeply demoralizing and depressing.

Whether ABC likes it or not, TJ Holmes, the one with the unbearable smile and arrogance, is the face of his problem. Taking it off the air was the right decision, hands down. But as she spends all her newfound free time jewelry shopping for Robach at David Yurman (a promise ring, nothing more!) and flaunting this latest affair in front of paparazzi, ex-spouses, and injured children, the question remains. : Why wasn’t Holmes fired outright, instead of ABC nicely saying he was ‘moving on’?

Why didn’t ABC News strongly denounce his behavior in a statement, distance itself from him, and vow to ensure that, in the future, anyone in his position who abuses female subordinates will be fired without severance or financial settlement? The director of ABC News is a woman. Where is she? Why doesn’t Holmes’s behavior generate the kind of outrage that has followed other workplace sex scandals?

Bill O’Reilly now broadcasts from his basement on Long Island. Charlie Rose lives in permanent media exile, just like Lauer.

Chris Cuomo was outed for sexually harassing his boss, by said boss, in a New York Times op-ed and was ultimately fired for abusing his position at CNN to potentially smear his brother’s accusers. He’s now back on the air at NewsNation, for whatever it’s worth. As Cuomo recently lamented on a New York Times podcast: “I’ll never be what I was.” I was number one on the most powerful media platform in the world.

These guys are always so surprised to find out that the axis of the elite media keeps spinning even when they are separated from it, floating in space like flotsam. To them and their grossly distorted egos, this really does seem like a fate worse than criminal charges or civil trials.

Still: Why hasn’t the #MeToo movement stirred up against TJ Holmes? Has the corporate media decided that, in the absence of outside pressure and contempt, it’s cheaper and easier to let some bad guys skid?

If so, that’s bad news for women.

TJ Holmes walks by, head held high, clearly not having any regrets. His arrogance towards the junior employees extended to his fellow employees.

“Nobody likes working with him,” an ABC source told Page Six. “He Screams and has the biggest ego.”

In a statement to The Cut, an ABC News spokesperson said: “We do not condone or condone harassment or bullying of any kind and take these matters very seriously and promptly.” Creating a safe, respectful and professional work environment for everyone has been and continues to be one of ABC News’ top priorities.

Once again, that’s hard to believe. When young women were being tossed around as sex toys, it’s inconceivable that the higher-ups didn’t know about it. It’s hard to believe that something so ingrained in corporate culture would change with one or two high-profile layoffs. As anyone who has ever worked in the media knows, newsrooms are the gossipiest workplaces: reporters reporting on other reporters, subordinates at a distinct disadvantage.

To wit: When Holmes was promoted to “Good Morning America,” Sascha says, she found out just like anyone else. He never told her that she was leaving, which left her feeling like a ‘disposable object’. She was too young and inexperienced, he says, to realize that if he was doing this with her, he was doing it with others.

“It was just part of a pattern,” she says. ‘I didn’t even think about the power dynamics. I thought it was special.

If anyone thought they were special, it was TJ Holmes. But the women he took advantage of have their own account. Here’s more to come.