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Disgraced American breakfast show presenter Matt Lauer was today accused of locking a female co-worker in his office and having sex with her until she passed out.

The new complaint against the broadcaster, 59, emerged hours after he was axed by the NBC network from his £20 million-a-year job anchoring the Today show. A former NBC employee told the New York Times that father-of-three Lauer made “inappropriate comments” to her after she started working for the company in the late Nineties.

The woman, who was not named, said that in 2001 the presenter asked her into his office and pressed a button locking the doors. She said Lauer asked her to unbutton her blouse.

“She said the anchor then stepped out from behind his desk, pulled down her pants, bent her over a chair and had intercourse with her,” reported the New York Times. “At some point, she said, she passed out with her pants pulled halfway down. She woke up on the floor of his office, and Mr Lauer had his assistant take her to a nurse,” the report continued. The woman, in her early forties at the time, said she did not report the incident as she feared losing her job.

A second complaint was also filed against Lauer yesterday, according to reports, but no further details were given.

In a separate report published last night by Variety magazine, more women anonymously accused the journalist of sexual harassment.

One reportedly claimed that Lauer once gave a “mortified” colleague a sex toy and included an explicit note on how he wanted to use it on her.

Lauer also allegedly summoned another staffer to his office and dropped his trousers to expose himself to her. Variety claimed he reprimanded the woman when she declined to engage in a sex act.

Lauer’s representatives were not available to comment on the reports. His sudden departure yesterday came after a woman told NBC bosses that he allegedly sexually harassed her at the Sochi Olympics in 2014.