Former Eric Ferguson co-host Melissa McGurren files suit, alleging ‘sham investigation’ into misconduct complaints at WTMX
Chicago radio host Melissa McGurren on Thursday accused her former employer, Hubbard Radio Chicago, of defamation in a new lawsuit that includes fresh allegations that WTMX-FM management perpetuated a culture of discrimination to protect cash cows such as popular morning host Eric Ferguson “at any cost.”
McGurren’s defamation suit against the company that owns The Mix seeks $10 million in damages and includes a declaration as an exhibit from another former employee, Jennifer Ashrafi, who said she quit her job co-hosting a well-known WTMX afternoon show in January 2020 because she was so “disgusted” by the “misogyny, gender discrimination and hostile work environment that was pervasive” at the station.
News broke last week that McGurren, who co-hosted “Eric in the Morning” on The Mix, described Ferguson in a December complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a “serial abuser of women” who had subjected her to an “unbearable hostile work environment.” McGurren alleged management did nothing about her concerns, then forced her out in December.
In Thursday’s defamation lawsuit, she said Hubbard did not perform an investigation or conducted “a sham investigation” into her allegations, and the company attacked her credibility and integrity with comments it made last week to staff.
Jeff England, Hubbard Chicago vice president and market manager, said in a message to employees Oct. 5 the company “thoroughly investigated this matter previously. Suffice it to say that we do not agree with Melissa’s characterization of events.”
“Hubbard Radio’s statement” that the company “thoroughly investigated” McGurren’s allegations “is false,” according to McGurren’s suit. “A thorough investigation would have uncovered that Jennifer Ashrafi brought many of these same issues, that corroborate Melissa’s ‘characterization of events,’ to England in January 2020, months before Melissa filed her charge” with the EEOC. A Hubbard spokesman did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment.
Ashrafi, who went by Jennifer Roberts on air, said in a court filing included in McGurren’s suit that The Mix has a pattern of typecasting female co-hosts as “good girl sidekicks” for higher-paid male co-hosts like Ferguson. She described her former workplace as “a hostile, humiliating atmosphere” for female employees. She did not make specific allegations against Ferguson involving his treatment of her, instead alleging he was “rude and dismissive to women.”
“His abusive behavior is open and known by all at The Mix,” she said in a written declaration, signed Wednesday. “It is humiliating to watch and dehumanizing to know that nothing can be done because the management at The Mix approved Ferguson’s misconduct by their silence in not reprimanding him.”
Ashrafi marks the fourth female former Mix employee to come forward to allege Ferguson engaged in inappropriate conduct and management of 101.9-FM protected him due to the popularity of his show. Another former WTMX employee, Cynthia DeNicolo, recently filed an earlier defamation suit against Hubbard Chicago. DeNicolo has also separately sued Ferguson, alleging he coerced DeNicolo into sexual acts in 2004.
Ferguson, 54, who has helmed The Mix’s morning program for 25 years, was taken off the air after the Tribune broke news of DeNicolo’s allegations late last month. He is expected to be off the air through October, according to last week’s email Hubbard sent its employees that is referenced in McGurren’s lawsuit.
DeNicolo, a former assistant producer of “Eric in the Morning,” sued Ferguson in May alleging he demanded she perform oral sex for an eight-month period in 2004 using the code words “I need a backrub.” DeNicolo, 43, said in her suit Ferguson tormented her for years afterward and blocked raises and promotions until she was laid off in May 2020.
Lawyers for Ferguson filed a motion in August to dismiss DeNicolo’s lawsuit against him, saying Ferguson “emphatically denies the existence of a sexual relationship” with DeNicolo “as well as engaging in the other conduct alleged in the complaint.”
Hubbard said it “took steps immediately to investigate” DeNicolo’s claims. “An internal investigation and an independent external investigation found no evidence to corroborate allegations of illegal workplace conduct,” Hubbard said in a statement to the media last month.
Days later, on Sept. 30, DeNicolo filed a $10 million defamation suit against Hubbard. She said in that suit “if Hubbard Radio had conducted an honest investigation with the intent of learning the truth, then Hubbard Radio would have learned (to the extent it did not already know) that DeNicolo’s complaints against Ferguson are true.”
One exhibit in DeNicolo’s defamation suit is a written Sept. 30 declaration from Kristen Mori, 51, of Ohio. Mori alleged Ferguson groped her at WTMX’s 2003 Christmas party in full view of her husband and co-workers when she worked at the station as a sales employee. Her husband said he witnessed the groping incident, according to his declaration.
The DeNicolo defamation suit is separate from the McGurren lawsuit, but both women are represented by attorney Carmen Caruso. In her defamation suit, filed Thursday, McGurren accuses Hubbard Chicago of intending to injure her and jeopardize her new career. McGurren co-hosts a morning show on the Audacy-owned station WUSN-FM 99.5 that “competes directly” with “Eric in the Morning,” her lawsuit said.
McGurren’s defamation suit includes an exhibit from Ashrafi as evidence that Hubbard had prior knowledge of complaints by female employees but turned a blind eye.
Ashrafi, 41, who said she worked at the station for more than a decade, alleged women employees are discriminated against regarding pay and job duties. She alleged women are mistreated, including at office parties, where spouses are not invited, and that “many men, not just Eric Ferguson, behaved inappropriately with the women employees,” her declaration said.
“This is one of many examples of micro-aggressions and suggestive comments women at The Mix are expected to endure (in addition to being underpaid and marginalized),” Ashrafi wrote. “By November 2019, I could not stand to be in that hostile work environment another day. In January 2020, I resigned after I lined up another job.”
When she quit, Ashrafi said she spoke with England and put him on notice that Ferguson and “other men in management” mistreat female employees, telling him, “You have a problem with women at this company,” according to her declaration.
Ashrafi told England that while she had no interest in suing, the station “might not be so lucky with other women in the future,” according to the court filing. The court document said England thanked her and asked “who he should talk to.” Ashrafi said she did not mention names, but she directed him to “start with the morning shows,” which would include McGurren and DeNicolo, both of whom were working with Ferguson at the time.
In her declaration, Ashrafi said she was not contacted as part of investigation into allegations by DeNicolo or McGurren, even though she told England when she quit of The Mix’s alleged culture of gender discrimination and the hostile work environment.
“These were the worst-kept secrets because everyone at The Mix knew about the abusive and humiliating way women are treated and everyone knew the owners, Hubbard Radio, had no intention of correcting this terrible problem because they believed that under their format, male hosts like Eric Ferguson were making too much money for them; and that the women didn’t matter,” her declaration said.
McGurren, 52, worked for The Mix for more than two decades. Her abrupt departure from the airwaves in December 2020 stunned her fans. When she left, Hubbard said in a public statement it was surprised and disappointed she had declined a contract extension — a comment McGurren has disputed in the court filings.
Documents detailing her ongoing efforts to seek compensation through arbitration and the EEOC complaint she filed in December were included in DeNicolo’s amended defamation suit last week, and repeated in Thursday’s lawsuit. The court documents mark the first public explanation for McGurren’s exit.
According to a Nov. 24, 2020, email included as an exhibit in that defamation suit, McGurren wrote to human resources: “I’ve been mentally and verbally abused, harassed, put into tears, yelled at, belittled, ignored, mocked and my job has been threatened multiple times.”
McGurren’s EEOC complaint alleges the station placed her on a short leave around Thanksgiving 2020, claiming it would investigate her complaints about Ferguson, but instead used the time to begin “the process of ‘rebranding’ to remove my name from the show.”
By Dec. 3, according to her EEOC complaint, her attorney told the station McGurren would not return to the show without assurances the alleged harassment would stop. The station publicly announced Dec. 16 that she did not renew her contract and would be leaving The Mix.
The EEOC granted McGurren the right to sue. Besides allegations of a hostile work environment, defamation and infliction of emotional distress, McGurren contended she was “intentionally paid less than men in similar or comparable positions.”
Ferguson, an Elburn, Illinois, native, was paired with another former co-host, Kathy Hart, when he joined The Mix in 1996 after stops in Rockford, Denver and other cities. Ferguson and Hart co-hosted the top-rated morning program “Eric & Kathy” until Hart departed the station in 2017 without explanation.
Efforts to reach Ferguson, who is named as David Eric Ferguson in DeNicolo’s May lawsuit, have been unsuccessful. In their motion to dismiss, besides denying the lawsuit’s allegations, Ferguson’s lawyers said it “appears to be intended to smear defendant’s reputation.”
