Music mogul Charlie Walk has filed a complaint with authorities claiming he was being extorted by a former radio station owner who threatened to unleash the #MeToo movement against him in the months before he was accused of sexual harassment.
Walk’s lawyers have filed a complaint with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office alleging that Tom Gilligan, a general manager of MM Group Radio in Ohio for three years (beginning in 1990), who then went on to own a series of stations, sent Walk a series of bizarre texts and voicemails threatening to “use all of my powers … and blow your life up.”
Sources say Republic Records president and “The Four” judge Walk and Gilligan haven’t talked in 20 years, but Gilligan began sending threatening messages in December, promising to report Walk to the #MeToo movement, saying he had three women ready to go public with claims.
Gilligan wrote to Walk in the texts seen by Page Six, “The Me Too movement will be knocking on your door … Karma is tough … Charlie you decided to take me and it’s just coming back at you. I want nothing else but to get you off the show embarrassing your family name, ruin your career, take half of your roster because they wouldn’t work for someone like you.
“I’ll make a deal with you. I was told that you stepped in front of me with Jon Bon Jovi who is someone I know personally and have known since 1986. You fix that and I’ll back off … we can either come to terms or not … I want nothing from you … you were just a prick and you’ve always been a prick just for the record … I don’t even know how you became the president of that company because you’re an asshole. But I will back off if you will do that for me. Or I can continue to harass you and put you on TMZ … use all of my powers which I have a lot of and blow your life up.”
Also, “I’m simply saying the rumors are out there and it’s all alleged but you know something when somebody makes an accusation its usually the truth and I actually 3 girls her [sic] gonna step up … Who are prepare to testify that you force them to have sex and you were gonna make them stars … So do we figure this out or do we fight?”
In the messages — which Walk didn’t respond to — Gilligan repeatedly insists he’s very wealthy and is not after money, but Walk’s legal team believes that had Walk responded, the demands would have turned to money.
A source close to Walk tells us, “Charlie hasn’t had anything to do with this guy for 20 years, they are not friends, these threats started once he started appearing on television. Charlie didn’t respond to his demands. Then a month later he has been hit with the exact accusations that Gilligan threatened would come out if Charlie didn’t give him what he wanted.”
We’re told Walk’s legal team is asking the DA’s investigators to launch a probe into whether Gilligan’s threats to make him part of the #MeToo movement and the recent claim against Walk could be connected.
Walk’s legal team reported the extortion behavior to the Manhattan DA in late December and met with the DA’s team on Jan. 9. On Jan. 29, an open letter from former Sony Music employee Tristan Coopersmith was published.
Coopersmith’s letter accused Walk of sexual misconduct when they worked at the label together. She accused him of making “lewd comments,” sending “vulgar” texts, groping her beneath a dinner table and pushing her onto his bed at his home while his wife was in another room.
Walk strongly denies her allegations, saying in a statement, “There has never been a single HR claim against me at any time during my 25 year career … this is the first time I have heard of this or any other allegation — and it is false.”
When reached by phone by Page Six on Sunday, Ohio-based Gilligan — who now runs a multimedia studio and claims on his LinkedIn profile to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars — played down the texts, saying: “I don’t have an issue with Charlie. We’re fine. It was just friends being idiots. I am not threatening him. It was two friends having a disagreement, it’s nothing, and this is Super Bowl Sunday.” He then hung up and didn’t respond to further messages.
Walk, who has been suspended by Republic Records and has stepped away from his Fox show, is vowing to fight back and has also hired entertainment attorney Jill Basinger, defamation attorney Tom Clare and employment lawyer John Singer.
Duncan Levin, who is leading Walk’s legal team, said, “The bottom line is that Charlie was hit by bizarre claims that he strenuously denies the month after he rebuffed the threats of this very same thing if he didn’t cooperate.”