Radio mogul Norm Pattiz announced on Thursday that he will resign from his post as University of California regent, weeks after state and education leaders called for the public university system to look into sexual harassment claims against him.
Pattiz wrote in his resignation letter that he would be retiring as UC regent and chair of the Regents Oversight Committee and National Laboratories, effective Feb. 16, 2018, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
In the letter, Pattiz told Board of Regents Chairman George Kieffer that it was a privilege working for the University of California, but made no mention of the workplace misconduct accusations that have haunted him for over a year.
Kieffer accepted Pattiz’s resignation in a follow-up letter the same day, thanking the media executive for his service.
“After so many years you deserve a break,” Kieffer wrote to Pattiz.
Pattiz, the founder of the PodcastOne studio, has been accused by former studio staffers of making sexually inappropriate remarks to female employees and brandishing a gun at at least one male employee.
Pattiz has only admitted to misconduct in one case ― in which he was caught asking to hold comedian Heather McDonald’s breasts. The moment was recorded and published by McDonald in November 2016, forcing Pattiz to apologize publicly that year.
McDonald quit PodcastOne shortly after the incident.
Ji Min Park, a PodcastOne employee who left after a year because of Pattiz’s behavior, told the Los Angeles Times in 2016 that Pattiz had made her uncomfortable by commenting on her looks. She said that Pattiz once told her she could have her name on a recording studio if he left his wife for her.
Speaking to the Times for the same 2016 story, Raymond Hernandez, a PodcastOne producer who was laid off after two years, said he witnessed Pattiz commenting on the bodies of other employees and, in one instance, asking employees if they wanted to see revealing photos of a female PodcastOne executive on his phone.
Hernandez filed a lawsuit against Pattiz in September 2017, accusing Pattiz of pointing his gun at him when he declined his request to use false advertising statistics.
California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and UC Student Regent Paul Monge urged the University of California to address the accusations against Pattiz in a Nov. 29 letter.
Two weeks before the letter was sent, University of California spokeswoman Dianne Klein told the Mercury News that she did not believe Pattiz had been the subject of an investigation by UC’s general counsel.
