ABC Sexual Harassment Suit Settled

American Broadcasting Cos. Inc. and a former female employee reached an out-of-court settlement Tuesday in her $15-million suit charging sexual harassment.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Cecily Coleman, 31, of Arlington, Va., brought the suit after she was fired from her $60,000-a-year job last May. She charged that the network fired her after she complained of sexual harassment by James D. Abernathy, 43, when he was ABC’s vice president for corporate affairs.

U.S. District Judge Barrington Parker dismissed the case and the jury chosen last Friday to hear the trial.

Coleman alleged that she was fired from her job in ABC’s Washington bureau after she complained that Abernathy had threatened her by making repeated, unwanted sexual advances and implying that her career depended on complying with his demands.

She also alleged that ABC’s top management tacitly encouraged sexual harassment.

ABC and Abernathy have denied all charges. In court papers, they maintained that she falsified her educational and employment history on her resume, was frustrated at not obtaining a permanent job and “went to great lengths to make herself highly visible” within ABC.