Bialek and attorney Gloria Allred prepare to address a news conference Monday. Sharon Bialek says Cain made inappropriate advances

NEW YORK - A Chicago woman accused Herman Cain of sexually inappropriate behavior Monday, claiming at a news conference that the presidential candidate pushed her to perform a sex act in exchange for his help in landing a job while he ran the National Restaurant Association.

In stepping forward, Sharon Bialek, a middle-aged single mother who appeared with celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred in New York, became the first woman to speak on the record about what she claims happened over a decade ago.


Later Monday, it was announced that Cain will hold a news conference in Phoenix on Tuesday afternoon to attempt to respond to the allegations. His task was complicated with reports by the Washington Examiner that Cain had sought a dinner date via the help of a Virginia woman, Donna Donella of Arlington, in 2002.

Cain’s supporters called attention to Bialek’s apparently rocky financial history. The Chicago Tribune reported that she twice filed for bankruptcy, in 1991 and again in 2001.

The Friends of Herman Cain also attacked Bialek: “After attacking Herman Cain through anonymous accusers for a week, his opponents have now convinced a woman with a long history of severe financial difficulties, including personal bankruptcy, to falsely accuse the Republican front-runner of events occurring over a decade ago for which there is no record, nor even a complaint filed.”

Bialek said she met Cain for dinner in the summer of 1997 after she had lost her job at a foundation affiliated with the National Restaurant Association. She told the packed press conference that the incident took place in a car after a dinner meeting in Washington.

“He suddenly reached over and put his hand on my leg under my skirt and reached for my genitals,” said Bialek, a Chicago native who worked for the foundation for roughly six months in 1997, according to the Restaurant Association.“He also grabbed my head and pushed it toward his crotch.”

When she arrived in Washington to meet Cain, Bialek said she found he had upgraded her hotel suite. Cain took her to dinner at an Italian restaurant, then drove over to see the National Restaurant Association headquarters. But Cain stopped the car outside the group’s office and made an advance, she said.

Bialek says she told Cain at the time: “What are you doing, you know I have a boyfriend, this isn’t what I came here for.”

Bialek said Cain said, “You want a job, don’t you?”

Bialek’s account came as the headlines surrounding accusations against Cain, first reported by POLITICO, entered a ninth day. Tuesday’s raucous press conference all but assured it will continue to drag on with its evocation of chaotic scenes from sex scandals of campaigns past, including a heckler from the Howard Stern show and a cast member from Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”

Allred, who’s been a Democratic donor, at the outset described Bialek as a registered Republican — a clear move to thwart potential criticism that the claim was politically-motivated.

“Instead of receiving the help that she had hoped for, Mr. Cain instead decided to provide her with his idea of a stimulus package,” Allred said.

Cain, midway through a news conference that CNN and Fox News carried live, issued a statement denying the allegations.

“Just as the country finally begins to refocus on our crippling $15 trillion national debt and the unacceptably high unemployment rate, now activist celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred is bringing forth more false accusations against the character of Republican front-runner Herman Cain,” the campaign said.

“All allegations of harassment against Mr. Cain are completely false. Mr. Cain has never harassed anyone. Fortunately the American people will not allow Mr. Cain’s bold ‘9-9-9 Plan’, clear foreign policy vision and plans for energy independence to be overshadowed by these bogus attacks,” the statement continued.

The event unfolded at the Friar’s Club, a members-only dinner club on Manhattan’s East Side where Allred just months ago held a similar press conference with a woman claiming former Rep. Anthony Weiner “sexted” her. Allred introduced Bialek as a diligent worker who had successfully raised money for the NRA’s Educational Foundation, before being let go unexpectedly in 1997.

Wearing a black dress with a ruffle down the front, black shoes and slim black eyeglasses, Bialek read from her own prepared statement, saying she had gotten to know Cain while she was working at the foundation.

Bialek said she and her boyfriend were invited to a party by Cain in his hotel suite the final night of the NRA May 1997 convention in Chicago. She also said she sat next to Cain at a convention luncheon where he “spoke to me extensively.”

When she was fired a month later, her boyfriend suggested she contact Cain for help, which she did. Cain called her back and said he’d been unaware she was fired. She suggested they meet for coffee while she was in Washington, where the NRA’s offices are located.

Her boyfriend booked her a room at the Capital Hilton, which she discovered, she claimed, that Cain had intervened to get her a better suite: “I upgraded you,” she quoted him saying.

Over dinner, Bialek said Cain asked what the meeting was about.

“Actually, Herman, my boyfriend whom you met, suggested that I meet with you because he thought you could help me because I really need a job,” she recalled saying to Cain. “I was wondering if there’s anything available at the state association level or perhaps if you could speak to someone at the foundation to try to get my job back, perhaps even in a different department. He said, ‘I’ll look into that.’”

Bialek said she got in a car with Cain after dinner. Cain said he would show her the association’s offices but instead groped her.

She then told him to stop and Cain took her back to her hotel, Bialek said.

Bialek did not take questions from the roughly 50 reporters crushed into the small room at the Friar’s Club. When a camerawoman called out to Bialek to push the hair off her face after she read her statement, she smiled and said, “I just had it done.”

Instead, Allred answered questions and, at a follow-up press conference, read from what she said were sworn statements from a former boyfriend and a close friend of Bialek, both of whom say she told them at the time that Cain had behaved inappropriately with her.

“I did not tell them the details because I was embarrassed, but I did tell them that Mr. Cain had been sexually inappropriate and that I was upset by his behavior,” she said.

She added that she saw Cain a month ago at a tea party conference in Chicago, and decided to approach him.

“I wanted to see if he would be man enough to own up to what he had done some 14 years ago,” she said. “He acknowledged that he remembered me from the foundation, looked uncomfortable and said nothing as he left for his speech.”

She added, “I kept wondering whether he had done to other women what he had done to me and whether anyone was going to speak up about it,” she said. “I had hoped that for his sake and his candidacy that mine was an isolated incident and that he had not exhibited those behaviors with other women.”

“I did not file a complaint against Mr. Cain as these other women did since I was not employed at the foundation when this occurred, but I am coming forward now to give a face and a voice to those women who cannot or do not wish to come forward and on behalf of all women in the workplace who are sexually harassed but do not come forward out of fear of retaliation and public humiliation.”

Joel Bennett, an attorney who represented one Cain accuser when she received a cash settlement in 1999, released a statement last week saying that Cain engaged in “inappropriate behavior” and made “unwanted advances” while CEO of the National Restaurant Association. He declined to reveal his client’s identity.

Bennett told POLITICO that last week he had received a voice mail from a woman in Chicago named Sharon who said she worked for the NRA and had been harassed by Cain. When he called her the next day, she said she had “too much on my plate and I don’t want to do anything.’”

Bennett then said he called her again yesterday and said if she was concerned about confidentiality he could arrange something to keep her anonymous.

“She said something to the effect of, ‘I’ll think about it’ or ‘I’ll let you know,’” he said.

Bennett said he did not direct that woman to Allred and “as of when I spoke to her yesterday [Sunday], she hadn’t decided to go public.”

He added of his own client, “This corroborates her complaint…it involves similar conduct by the same person.”

Allred told reporters that Bialek hired her last week. She declined to release the names of those she said made sworn statements supporting her version of the events. The celebrity attorney said her client is not filing a “lawsuit or claim” and has not been in touch with any of the other women who have accused Cain of personal misconduct.

The National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation is a Chicago-based offshoot of the NRA that provides educational programs and certifications to foodservice managers, and also runs a scholarship program for students interested in the industry.

Bialek raised money for the scholarship program, according to Allred.

Cain and other officials and board members from the NRA served as trustees of the Educational Foundation, according to the group’s 1999 tax filings, obtained by POLITICO.

Employees of the Educational Foundation worked closely with Cain and the staff of the NRA, said Lee Ellen Hayes, who served as senior vice president of industry relations at the Educational Foundation in the late 1990s.

Hayes, who did not respond to messages Monday, told POLITICO late last month she “worked fairly closely with” Cain “on a weekly basis” during her time at the Educational Foundation, and that his behavior toward female staffers was “extremely professional” and “fair.”

“There was never an issue with it,” said Hayes.

In 1999, two years after Bialek’s firing, the foundation had a total annual budget of nearly $16 million, including a payroll of about $6 million.

Bialek was prepping for a round of televised interviews, Allred said, including an appearance Monday evening and two more on morning shows based out of New York on Tuesday.

Jonathan Martin contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: An earlier verison of this story incorrectly stated that Cain had attempted to date Donna Donella. According to the Washington Examiner report, he was seeking her help in arranging a dinner date.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: David Cohen @ 11/08/2011 12:13 AM CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Cain had attempted to date Donna Donella. According to the Washington Examiner report, he was seeking her help in arranging a dinner date.