Third Worker Says Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain Harassed Her

A third woman considered filing a workplace complaint against Herman Cain over what she deemed aggressive and unwanted behavior when she and Cain, now a Republican presidential candidate, worked together during the late 1990s, the woman revealed Wednesday. She said the behavior included a private invitation to his corporate apartment.

The woman said he made sexually suggestive remarks or gestures about the same time that two co-workers had settled separate harassment complaints against Cain, who was then the head of the National Restaurant Association.

The woman was located and approached by the AP as part of its investigation into harassment complaints against Cain that were disclosed in recent days and have thrown his presidential campaign into turmoil. She spoke only on condition of anonymity, saying she feared losing her current job and the possibility of damage to her reputation.

Cain’s campaign denied again that he’d done anything wrong, claimed a “smear campaign” as he is riding high in opinion polls and accused rival Rick Perry’s operation of being behind the original stories.

Perry told the conservative RedState blog late Wednesday that his campaign “had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

Earlier, the Perry campaign suggested the campaign of yet another candidate, Mitt Romney, might be a source. Romney’s campaign said that wasn’t true.

The woman said she did not file a formal complaint against Cain because she began having fewer interactions with him. Later, she learned that a co-worker — one of the two women whose accusations have rocked Cain’s campaign this week — had already done so. She said she would have felt she had to file otherwise.

She said Cain told her that he had confided to colleagues how attractive she was and invited her to his corporate apartment outside work.

His actions “were inappropriate, and it made me feel uncomfortable,” she said.

Earlier this week, amid the allegations but not addressing them specifically, Cain said he had “a sense of humor, and some people have a problem with that.”

But the former employee told the AP, “People have said he’s a jovial guy. But I never knew him to make jokes like that.”

The employee worked at the restaurant association with Cain during the period in question, that she has no party affiliation in her voter registration in the past decade and is not identified as a donor in federal campaigns or local political campaigns. Records show she was registered as a Democrat at one point previously.