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False Accusation of Sexual Harassment

January 24, 2006 at about 4:10, Oxane (Gypsy) Taub, producer of "Uncensored 9/11 and Beyond", accused me of sexual harassment during public testimony at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting. Her husband David dePape, producer of "9/11 = Inside Job", repeated the accusation immediately after her. Why would they slander me in such a manner?

The first I heard of her accusation was on January 20th, when Gypsy sent me a second email stating what a wonderful person Zane was and how happy she was that I was terminated. There was no mention of any harassment in her first letter, although she did call me a "back-stabbing bitch". In her second letter, she accused me of being "a vindictive poisonous snake", "vindictiveness and cowardice and your own dishonesty", "sexually harassing me when I was pregnant", and "terrorizing everybody". People can say all sorts of things in personal email. Public testimony in front of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is quite another manner.

My contact with Gypsy and her husband has been minimal, while turning in tapes, and maybe a bit of cordial small talk. I recall meeting Gypsy while taping an episode of "Newsroom on Access SF". She was a guest on one of the interview segments. I remember her as being rather uncooperative during the sound check. The next time I saw her she was pregnant. The time after that she had a baby. She was just another producer dropping off tapes, although she did seem to rant about the war. Then again, who wasn't? I met her husband one evening when he dropped of a video tape for her show. He introduced himself as her husband, and as I accepted the tape, I asked him how the baby was. I never met him before and I knew who Gypsy was, but until then I didn't know she was married. In my social experience, it's polite to ask parents about their children, especially newborns. He smiled and said they were fine. I didn't see him again until the day the Board of Supervisors took public testimony on the Comcast Cable Franchise Extension. Even on that day, Gypsy and I talked a bit in the hallway when we talked about how wonderful he baby was looking. There was no hint of any problems.

She was quite different when she arrived late at the Timeslot Selection Meeting on December 26th. I wrote about the December 19th and 26th meetings before. Prior to the meeting, Zane told Sam Long (the new Program Coordinator) and I that we should not tolerate any disruptions and if anyone gave us trouble we should ask them to leave. He also demanded that people should be assigned seats from front left to back right in the order of their arrival, and that would dictate the order for selecting their lottery numbers. Zane was there as people arrived, and he gave them their assigned seats. After he opened the meeting, and introduced us, Zane left and Sam proceeded with the meeting. Zane was to have locked the doors, but 10 minutes into the meeting, Gypsy arrived with two children in tow. She was very disruptive, and went to the front left of the room and demanded that people move for her. I told her everyone was in order and asked her to go to the back of the line, but she refused and created a ruckus making everyone move for her and her children. Then she continued to disrupt the meeting by standing up and making speeches to coerce others to stay away from her desired timeslot. Sam gave me a look which I interrupted as "throw her out", but knowing that Gypsy is a rabble-rouser, I gave he another chance and told her to site down and be quite. After the fifth disruption, and told her in no uncertain terms that she would be asked to leave and she would forfeit her chance for a timeslot from this meeting. What she did, was go from person to person and whisper in their ears. Sam could see that she wasn't "right" and asked me to ignore her. She finally got her timeslot and left the meeting. Unfortunately, she left her daughter in the room which cause some additional disruptions. I found out later that after getting her timeslot, Gypsy stood in the lobby to tell people about what a horrible person I was to tell her to sit down and be quiet. I figured she bought into the false impression going around that I personally canceled those 36 shows in a discriminatory manner based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and show content.

After giving up that Zane would ever respond to my pleas that he correct the wrong impression that was still being talked up by some producers, volunteers, and other staff, I appealed to the SFCTC Board of Directors to hear my grievances and offer some mediation. That's what got me fired. Afterwards, I started to clear my name, and later expose Zane's mismanagement of Access SF.

Gypsy's false accusation of Sexual Harassment wasn't made until a couple weeks later, and a few days after that she (and her husband) made them in public at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting. I suppose she doesn't see much difference between claiming that the United States government is responsible for 9/11 (as she and her husband claim in their public access shows), and slandering a person in public by falsely accusing him of sexual harassment.

Zane's Collusion

Gypsy made up her false allegation of sexual harassment to get back at me for disciplining her for repeatedly disrupting at the December 26th timeslot selection meeting. People who know Gypsy, know better, including Zane Blaney. That's why I find Zane Blaney's involvement much more troubling. Some producers have sent Zane email in my support, and Zane has responded to them by forwarding copies of Gypsy's email (see above) accusing me of sexually harassing her while pregnant. Zane has been forwarding what he knows are slanderous false allegations against me, in order to discredit me.

Questions/Comments?