Struggling Cain accuses Perry in harassment case

Cain chief of staff Mark Block issued a scathing indictment of rival conservative Perry’s camp which he said had spread false allegations.

“It’s an outrage,” Block told Fox News. “The Perry campaign needs to apologize to Herman Cain and his family and America for this despicable action.”

Cain and Perry are fighting it out to be the main conservative challenger to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican nomination to take on President Barack Obama next year.

Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan said the charge that the Texas governor’s team was behind the sexual harassment claims that surfaced over the weekend were both reckless and false.

“Contrary to the Cain campaign’s false accusations, there is not one shred of evidence that any member of the Perry campaign had anything to do with the recent stories regarding Herman Cain — because it isn’t true,” Sullivan said in a statement.

Cain, the former chief executive officer of Godfather’s Pizza, struggled to get control of the escalating crisis just as he was leading in many polls of Republican voters.

One accuser was seeking to tell her side of the story while avoiding a media frenzy by having her lawyer issue a statement, rather than speaking publicly herself.

“Don’t even bother asking me all of these other questions that you all are curious about,” Cain told reporters as he met with white-coated conservative doctors. “Excuse me!” he shouted testily when they pressed ahead with questions.

FRONT-RUNNER IN POLLS

Cain’s lead could be short-lived once voters absorb the drip-drip-drip of controversy emerging about accusations of sexual harassment against Cain by at least two women when he led the National Restaurant Association in the mid-1990s.

To add to the political acrimony, the Perry camp suggested Romney’s campaign might have been responsible for the claims, but Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul countered, “Not true.”

The controversy is a setback for Cain, whom a Quinnipiac University poll declared the front-runner in the Republican race with 30 percent, followed by Romney with 23 percent.

The poll was taken mostly before the allegations surfaced.

An Oklahoma political consultant with links to the Perry campaign, Chris Wilson, told local radio station KTOK he was a witness to one incident.

“I was the pollster at the National Restaurant Association when Herman Cain was head of it and I was around a couple of times when this happened and anyone who was involved with the NRA at the time, knew that this was gonna come up,” he said.

Wilson said for legal reasons he could not discuss details of the incident, “but if she comes out and talks about it, like I said, it’ll probably be the end of his campaign.”

The Associated Press reported that a third former employee said she considered filing a workplace complaint over what she saw as aggressive and unwanted behavior by Cain when she worked for him. The behavior included a private invitation to his corporate apartment, she said.

“There are factions that are trying to destroy me, personally, as well as this campaign,” Cain said, speaking to technology executives in a Virginia suburb of Washington.

The New York Times reported that one woman who accused Cain of sexual harassment had been given $35,000, a year’s salary, in severance in the late 1990s after an encounter with Cain.

Joel Bennett, a lawyer for one of the women who have made accusations against Cain, said his client had decided not to go public or make a public statement to shield herself from the media frenzy, the Times reported late on Wednesday.

“She’s not going to affirmatively make any public statements or public appearances about the case, everything will be through me,” he said.

CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT

Bennett said in an email that he would send a draft statement of his client’s position to the National Restaurant Association on Thursday, seeking approval for the statement to be released despite the woman’s confidentiality agreement.

Bennett had earlier said his client wanted to be released from the confidentiality agreement which has barred her from speaking about her interaction with Cain.

The National Restaurant Association said the woman’s lawyer contacted association officials on Wednesday and was asked to get in touch with the organization’s outside counsel.

“Mister Bennett indicated that he would do so tomorrow (Thursday), after he met with his client,” said Sue Hensley, a spokeswoman for the association.

Block told Fox it was up to the National Restaurant Association to decide what it wanted to do.

Travis Gemoets, a Los Angeles lawyer who specializes in these types of cases, said it could be that all three parties — the woman, Cain and the restaurant association — would have to agree to lift the confidentiality agreement.

Alternatively, he said, the woman could get an agreement from a third party to pay any penalties or legal costs she might sustain, freeing her up to tell her story without agreement from the other two parties.

“Typically these cases don’t allow (a circumstance where) if one side breaches, that means the other side immediately can,” Gemoets said.

Cain told the technology executives he expected his campaign would survive because of his popular support.

“There’s a force at work here that is much greater than those that would try to destroy me, and destroy this campaign, and this journey to the White House. And that force is called the voice of the people,” he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – By Patricia Zengerle and Steve Holland(Additional reporting by JoAnne Allen, David Morgan, Thomas Ferraro and Kim Dixon; editing by Mohammad Zargham and Todd Eastham)