Sharon Bialek may have some company at the podium soon.
Karen Kraushaar, who received a settlement from the National Restaurant Association over her complaints about Herman Cain’s behavior, now says she may come forward to tell her story. Previously she had said through her lawyer, Joel Bennett, that she wanted to stay anonymous and instead offered only a brief statement confirming that she stands by her original complaint, the details of which are still not known. But after The Daily, an iPad only publication owned by Rupert Murdoch, published her name on Tuesday, she told the New York Times that she’s ready to go public.
“When you are being sexually harassed in the workplace, you are extremely vulnerable,” she said. “You do whatever you can to quickly get yourself into a job some place safe, and that is what I thought I had achieved when I left.”
According to Kraushaar, she is now considering holding a press conference to detail the specific incidents that led to her complaint. Specifically, she’s interested in “the idea of a joint press conference where all of the women would be together with our attorneys and all of this evidence would be considered together.”
The National Restaurant Association issued a statement last week indicating that it was releasing her from a non-disclosure agreement in the original settlement, allowing her to talk openly about Cain if she so chooses.
Cain has portrayed Bialek as a gold-digger, pointing to a history of financial troubles even as she says she is not seeking any kind of compensation or benefits by coming forward. But Kraushaar, who works as a communications staffer in the federal government, deliberately took herself out of the story until the press forced her hand by revealing her name. At the very least it would mean another dramatic revelatory event that would extend the harassment story in the press and force Cain to rebut yet another set of detailed accusations.
