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| Waffle House CEO Joseph Rogers Jr. |
The Atlanta Police Department isinvestigating the accusations from Mye Brindle, a 43-year-old single mother whoworked out of Rogers' Buckhead home as his housekeeper from 2003 to 2008 andthen again as his house manager 2009 until May 2012.
No charges have been filed againstRogers.
The former employee hasaccused Rogers of fondling her and routinely forcing her to perform sexual actson him starting in 2003. The woman claimed she was forced to put up with thebehavior because she could not afford to quit her job.
However, Brindle quitthe job in June after her son went to college on a full scholarship, accordingto the incident report that she filed Sept. 28 at the Atlanta PoliceDepartment.
Rogers disputed thoseclaims in his written statement while at the same time apologizing for the painthat the “infrequent consensual sexual encounters” had caused his wife andfamily.
The Atlanta JournalConstitution reported Wednesday that Rogers and his wife, Fran, satside-by-side at a hearing in Cobb County Superior Court on Tuesday, dressed indark business suits and flanked by three attorneys and a private investigator.
Civil litigation inFulton and Cobb counties related to the claims has been filed under seal sinceSeptember, but some of the filings were leaked to media outlets last week, theAJC reported.
Cobb County SeniorSuperior Court Judge G. Grant Brantley on Tuesday ordered documents related tothe Cobb case to be unsealed since many of the details had already becomepublic.
According to the AJCarticle, Rogers’ lawyer, Robert Ingram, said he got a letter from the formeremployee’s lawyer in July seeking to discuss the allegations and videotapes Bridlehad allegedly obtained depicting Rogers nude and engaged in sex acts. Ingram said theletter was tantamount to extortion. The woman’s attorney, David Cohen,characterized it as a customary demand letter.
Rogers’ lawyerssought to bar the woman from distributing the videos in an injunction filedSept. 14 in Cobb County. Four days later, the Brindle filed a sexual harassmentlawsuit in Fulton County. She later dropped the suit and filed a virtuallyidentical one in Cobb County on Oct. 9 as a counter-claim to Rogers’ suit, theAJC reported.
While the judgeallowed written records from the Cobb case to be unsealed, Brantley was nothappy someone distributed information about the case to media in violation ofhis order.
Brantley impoundedall the video and audio tapes and any transcripts of them — which are stillsealed because a judge has ruled Rogers’ privacy interest in his body outweighsthe public’s interest in seeing them — to prevent the footage from being leaked,according to the AJC.
Prior to thedismissal of the Fulton case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Susan Forslingruled that Brindle had illegally obtained the videos without Rogers’ knowledgeor permission, according to the AJC report. Brindle’s lawyers are currentlyappealing that decision to the state Supreme Court.
Rogers’ attorneysclaim that lawyers for the former employee were responsible for the leaks andhave filed a motion to hold them in contempt, the AJC reported. Brantley saidhe would schedule a hearing on the matter in the near future.
The following is Rogers' fullstatement which his attorney’s provided to the media:
“Over an almosteight year period when I was separated, single and re-married, I had a seriesof infrequent consensual sexual encounters with my housekeeper. That waswrong of me and I am very sorry for the pain and embarrassment I’ve caused mywife and family. There is no excuse for what I have done.
“My housekeeper started working with me in 2003, and was working fifteen hoursper week when she was let go at the end of 2008. She then re-applied andwas re-hired as my house manager in late 2009, where she worked until she quither job in June of this year. Shortly thereafter, on July 16, 2012,I received a letter from her attorney containing false allegations and strongthreats. According to her attorneys, she now wants millions of dollarsfrom me.
“I am a victim of my own stupidity, but I am not going to be a victim of acrime – extortion. I shared the threatening blackmail letter with my wifeand we engaged attorneys to investigate the situation. On September 14,2012, I initiated court proceedings and my former housekeeper and her attorneyshave responded with false allegations, including filing a false Police Report.
“As personally embarrassing as this situation is for me, I am committed to thelegal and law enforcement process to expose the motives of my formerhousekeeper and her attorneys.
“I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co workers for my personalbehavior and will work hard to regain their trust and respect.”
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