Michael Oreskes has resigned as chief of news for National Public Radio amid allegations that he sexually assaulted two women seeking jobs from him nearly 20 years ago, according to reports.

“I am deeply sorry to the people I hurt. My behavior was wrong and inexcusable, and I accept full responsibility,” Oreskes wrote in an internal memo obtained by CNN.

“To my colleagues, I am grateful for every minute I’ve had to work with each of you,” he wrote. “NPR has an important job to do. Public radio matters so much and I will always be your supporter.”



NPR CEO Jarl Mohn said he asked Oreskes “for his resignation because of inappropriate behavior.”

Earlier, Oreskes had been placed on leave and Mohn appointed Chris Turpin as temporary news chief.

Two women had accused Oreskes of kissing them when they were discussing job prospects with him in the 1990s, when he was Washington bureau chief of the New York Times.

After the Washington Post reported the allegations, a third accuser — a current NPR staffer — said she filed a complaint about him with the company’s human resources department in October 2015, CNN Money reported.

The employee’s complaint said Oreskes “hijacked a career counseling session into a three-hour-long dinner that delved into deeply personal territory.”

At the time, NPR rebuked Oreskes and informed other bigwigs at the company after the complaint was filed, according to NPR’s own reporting.

Before joining NPR in 2015, Oreskes was a vice president and senior managing editor at the Associated Press.

His resignation is the latest example of the so-called “Weinstein effect” — with attention focused on sexual harassment in the workplace in the wake of the scandal involving disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.