Eric Massa: Harassment Allegations, Resignation, and $115,000 Settlement

Eric Massa, a first-term Democratic congressman from New York, resigned from the U.S. House on March 8, 2010, after male staffers accused him of groping, unwanted touching, and a pattern of sexual harassment inside his office. The Eric Massa harassment allegations drew national attention less for the underlying conduct than for his shifting explanations, a bizarre televised interview in which he admitted to “tickling” a staffer until he couldn’t breathe, and the later revelation that taxpayers had paid $115,000 to settle three claims against him.¹

Who Eric Massa Was

Massa was a retired Navy Commander who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1981 and served more than two decades in uniform, including a stint as a special assistant to General Wesley Clark during the Bosnian conflict.² He was elected to represent New York’s 29th Congressional District in 2008 after losing a 2006 race against the same Republican incumbent.³ He took office on January 6, 2009, and served barely 14 months before resigning.

What the Staffers Alleged

Multiple male aides said Massa began harassing them soon after he took office in 2009.⁴ The accounts described sexual touching, aggressive sexual overtures, and open statements from Massa about wanting to have sex with members of his staff. One staffer alleged that Massa tried to fondle a young colleague in a hotel room during the 2008 campaign. Others said Massa manufactured reasons to have individual aides travel with him alone on overnight trips.

Staffers described the office environment as a “frat house” where sex talk and lewd behavior were routine. A gay male policy aide reported that Massa directed sexualized remarks at him regularly. Massa also shared a townhouse in Washington with five of his staffers, an arrangement his chief of staff, Joe Racalto, warned was “not Congressional.”⁵

Racalto tried to intervene internally. In October 2009, he circulated a written memo prohibiting “casual conversations of a sexual nature” in the office, warning staff that such behavior was “highly inappropriate, offensive, and against the law.”⁴

How the Resignation Unfolded

The complaint reached House leadership on February 8, 2010, when a staffer notified Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Hoyer told Massa to report the matter to the House Ethics Committee within 48 hours.⁶

The public story then changed almost by the day:

March 3, 2010: Massa announced he would not seek re-election, citing a recurrence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.⁷
March 4, 2010: The House Ethics Committee confirmed an active investigation.
March 5, 2010: Massa escalated from retirement at the end of his term to immediate resignation.
March 8, 2010: He formally resigned at 5:00 p.m.⁸

His reasons shifted with each appearance. He first blamed his health. He then said he was leaving “with a profound sense of failure” and did not want to put his family through a “prolonged ethics investigation.” He then advanced a conspiracy theory, telling a New York radio audience, “I was set up for this from the very, very beginning,” and claiming Democratic leaders engineered the complaints to punish his vote against the health care reform bill, which had passed the House in November 2009 by 220 to 215.⁹ He called White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel “son of the devil’s spawn.”¹⁰

Both the White House and House leadership denied the retaliation claim. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called it “ridiculous.”¹¹ A spokeswoman for Hoyer said it had “zero merit.”⁸

The Glenn Beck Interview

The day after resigning, Massa sat for an hour-long interview on Glenn Beck’s Fox News program. Beck had anticipated hard allegations against the White House. He got something else.

Massa acknowledged “rough language” and being too “familiar” with his staff, attributing it to his transition from the Navy to Congress.¹² Pressed on whether he groped a staffer, he said: “Yeah, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe, and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday. It was ‘Kill the old guy.'”¹³ In the same answer, he insisted the conduct was “not sexual.”

He retold a story about being confronted by Rahm Emanuel in the congressional gym shower, saying Emanuel approached him “naked as a jaybird” and poked him in the chest over a budget vote. “Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?” Massa asked.¹⁴ A White House aide told the Washington Post that Emanuel said the encounter “did not happen.”

By the end of the hour Beck apologized to viewers: “America, I’m gonna shoot straight with you. I think I’ve wasted your time.”¹² Days later, on CNN’s Larry King Live, Massa reversed himself again, denying he had groped anyone and denying the harassment allegations entirely.⁶ Speaker Nancy Pelosi called him “a very sick person” whose “judgment is impaired.”¹³

What Happened After He Left

Because Massa resigned before the Ethics Committee finished its work, the inquiry into his personal conduct was dropped. On April 21, 2010, the committee opened a new investigation focused on whether sitting House members, officers, or staff had learned of the allegations and failed to act.¹⁵ The investigative subcommittee was led by Chair Zoe Lofgren and ranking Republican Jo Bonner, and Hoyer was among those interviewed.¹⁶

Racalto, the former chief of staff, filed his own sexual harassment claim against Massa with the Office of Compliance on March 23, 2010.¹⁷ The FBI separately examined a $40,000 lump-sum payment from Massa’s campaign account to Racalto, dated March 4, the day before Massa’s resignation announcement.¹⁶ Massa said he had not authorized the payment and alleged his signature had been forged. Racalto’s attorney, Camilla McKinney, said the forgery claim was an attempt to “discredit someone who is making a sexual harassment complaint against him.”¹⁸

The $115,000 in Taxpayer-Funded Settlements

Years after Massa left Congress, documents showed the Congressional Office of Compliance, now the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, had paid $115,000 in 2010 to settle three separate harassment claims against him, in amounts of $85,000, $20,000, and $10,000.¹ The recipients were male employees who alleged sexual harassment and misconduct, and most were required to sign non-disclosure agreements.¹⁹

The records became public after Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina obtained them through a House Oversight Committee subpoena to the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights. Mace described the arrangement as a “slush fund,” saying: “Congress has spent decades hiding this from the American people, and enough is enough. Taxpayers didn’t sign up to foot the bill for cover-ups.”¹ The Massa payments were part of a larger pattern, with the office having paid out $17 million over 20 years to settle 264 individual harassment and discrimination cases involving members of Congress.²⁰

A friend of Massa told reporters the former congressman “knew nothing of the complaints” and that the settlements were paid after his resignation without his involvement.¹⁹

1
Rep. Nancy Mace, House.gov. Rep. Nancy Mace Secures Files on Taxpayer-Funded Sexual Harassment Slush Fund
2
United States Naval Academy. Eric J. Massa, Class of 1981
3
The Leader. Massa Officially Declares Victory
4
NBC News. Massa Staffers Allege Pattern of Harassment
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CBS News. Eric Massa Says He Groped Staffer Non-Sexually
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CBS News. Fact Check: Why Did Eric Massa Resign
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CBS News. Eric Massa to Retire Amid Cancer Fight, Harassment Allegations
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New York Times. Massa Says Health Care Stand Contributed to His Resignation
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Christian Science Monitor. Eric Massa’s Early Exit From House May Ease Healthcare’s Passage
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New York Post. Naked Shower Room Confrontation Laid Bare in Massa’s Parting Shots
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ABC News. White House Calls Eric Massa’s Charges Ridiculous
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The Atlantic. Eric Massa on Glenn Beck: Tickling and Disappointment
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Politico. Massa: I Did Nothing Sexual
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CNN. Massa, Rahm Emanuel and the Congressional Gym
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NPR. House Investigates Possible Massa Cover-Up
16
CBS News. Eric Massa Allegations Spur New House Ethics Committee Investigation
17
Politico. Massa Chief of Staff Files Sexual Harassment Claim
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NBC New York. Massa Has Not Gone Quietly
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CNN. Congress Sexual Misconduct Settlements
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Roll Call. Report: Congress Paid Massa Accusers $100,000