The Federal Communications Commission investigated “porn watching” by staffers, resulting in one being forced to resign, but no further action was ever taken.

Forbes contributing editor Fred Campbell, in a posting Oct. 20, said the FCC’s inspector general told a congressional hearing Sept. 17, 2014 that a staffer charged with watching porn “eight hours a week” had been allowed to resign. This “apparently allowed him to keep his federal benefits,” said Campbell.

Campbell’s posting, under the headline, “The Real Story Behind the FCC Sex Scandal,” reports a lawsuit in which Thomas Reed, director of the Office for Communications Business Opportunities, admitted to having sex with a Washington Post reporter in his office.

The Daily Caller, in a story Oct. 19, said the incident “seemingly went completely unnoticed in the media.”

“Far more serious” than sex taking place in the office, said Campbell, was charges by a female employee that male employees were allowed to watch “porn” in the office next to her office and management ignored her complaints.

Writes Campbell: “A male coworker repeatedly invited other male coworkers to watch porn with him in the cubicle adjacent to hers, from which she would ‘hear groans—mmm,mmm.ahh –in response to the pornographic viewings,’ while having one ‘stand guard looking for her.’”

This should have “prompted swift remedial action” but instead, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s lawyers “attempted to dismiss the case in federal court by arguing that these allegations amounted to nothing more than the ‘mere existence of pornography in the workplace’ that was not sufficiently ‘severe or pervasive’ to create a hostile work environment.”

Judge Sees “Plausible” Complaint

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for D.C., found that the female employee was subjected to “discriminatory intimidation, ridicule and insult” that was sufficiently “severe or pervasive” to alter the conditions of her employment and “create an abusive working environment.”

The March 2016 report of the FCC’s Inspector General to the FCC commissioners described a “lengthy investigation” into the alleged mis-use of FCC facilities to conduct personal business and view pornography.

“It appears no action has been taken in response to the IG’s findings,” says Campbell, adding: “The pattern of denial, delay and inaction in this case is positively outrageous. The next administration should make cleaning this mess up a top priority.”

Forbes contributor Larry Downes, posted an article March 16, 2016 with the headline, “The Rise and Fall of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s Internet Empire. He says Wheeler’s term is “almost certain to end with the next President’s election.”

Wheeler’s “increasingly autocratic management style has left the agency more political and more partisan than ever…” he writes. Wheeler’s “effort to redefine the internet figuratively and literally has dangerously derailed the FCC from its legal duty to serve as Congress’s expert independent agency for communication technology.”