Bloomberg reporter Abigail Doolittle files sexual harassment lawsuit against ... trends now

An explosive sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a female TV personality against a veteran male news anchor is roiling Bloomberg, the company owned by former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In a lawsuit obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, Abigail Doolittle, an on-air news reporter at Bloomberg Television since 2016, is claiming she was repeatedly sexually harassed for four years by news anchor Mark Crumpton who has been at the company for three decades.

Insiders are debating whether it is a case of the latest MeToo moment at Bloomberg – which has wrestled with complaints from women in the male-dominated company in the past and now has a new multi-year harassment claim on its hands.

Or is it a case of a 'newsroom Karen' in which an attractive young white news woman is leveling complaints without merit against a veteran black news anchor.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) took no action after Doolittle's initial complaints to the federal agency last year, but in July signed off on the case and gave Doolittle her 'notice of right to sue' on her own in federal court. 

Now it may ultimately be up to a jury to decide if it goes to trial.

'We took her claims seriously, thoroughly investigated them and we found zero evidence to support them,' said Bloomberg L.P. spokesman Ty Trippet.

Doolittle, 49, remains an on-air news anchor at Bloomberg TV.

'Through our investigation of more recent complaints by her, we still found zero evidence to support her claims,' said Trippet. 

'Based on what we have reviewed, however, we have serious concerns that she may in fact be unfairly targeting her colleague.'

The suit Doolittle filed in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan in late October names both Crumpton, 62, and the company as defendants and claims that the company failed to protect her after she brought complaints to their attention over many months from late 2020 to mid-2021.

In the most explosive claim, Doolittle's suit cites an alleged 'masturbation incident' during a live broadcast she was doing on December 1, 2020.

'Moments into the broadcast Crumpton stared directly at [Doolittle] while masturbating his genitals over his pants,' according to the suit.

But Bloomberg said her story changed over time and that initially, according to filings that the company made with the EEOC in response to a complaint filed with the federal agency last year, she said only that 'Crumpton was doing something with his tie around his crotch area while she was on air.'

And in June, Bloomberg said when she spoke of the December incident to company HR officials she said only that she could see Crumpton 'in the corner of her eye' and she 'wasn't positive what he was doing' but thought he was doing something 'around the crotch area.'

In the lawsuit, she claimed Crumpton was in her 'direct line of sight.'

She said it was part of a series of sexual harassment incidents that stretched back to at least 2018, when she said Crumpton repeatedly asked her to accompany him on a tropical vacation. She says she turned him down repeatedly. 

'Life would be a lot better if you and I were on a beach in the Caribbean together with a cocktail,' the suit claims Crumpton said to Doolittle several times.

The lawsuit also claims she felt harassed when Crumpton on numerous occasions throughout 2019 told her her 'earrings looked gorgeous.'

Doolittle's suit asserts that other female workers were subject to harassment. She claims that in December 2019, when San Francisco anchor Emily Chang was on air during a live segment, Crumpton 'seductively stared' at Chang on screen and 'made sexually suggestive grunting noise.'

She also claims he started calling co-workers

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