ChaCha settles sexual harassment case

A sexual-harassment-by-Twitter lawsuit against the popular Q&A website ChaCha has been secretly settled out of court, and it's unlikely that even ChaCha will supply answers about what was in the settlement.

The lawsuit was filed last spring against the Carmel tech company by Renee Larr, a former ChaCha employee. She alleged that ChaCha failed to stop repeated tweets from Vee Jones, the wife of ChaCha founder and CEO Scott Jones, which accused Larr of carrying on an affair with Jones.

Both Larr and Scott Jones denied any affair. But Vee Jones made the case in numerous tweets to her 50,000 Twitter followers at the time. Her following has since waned. Her Twitter account, @VeeVee, now shows her with 33,700 followers.

Larr said she had to quit her ChaCha job because of the publicity from the accusatory tweets. She also described a face-to-face confrontation with Vee Jones in ChaCha's offices.

Larr wanted ChaCha to pay her for lost wages and benefits, damage for "mental anguish and consequential harm" and her legal fees. In a court filing last year, Larr's attorneys named both Vee and Scott Jones on a preliminary list of witnesses they wanted to testify.

In a response to the lawsuit last spring, Scott Jones said Larr's lawsuit had "absolutely no merit whatsoever" and contained "significant misrepresentations."

The settlement was disclosed last month and the case dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Young. No details of the settlement were given. The settlement came after private mediation between both parties last fall.

Lawyers from both sides didn't respond Friday to requests for comment.

Call Star reporter Jeff Swiatek at (317) 444-6483. Follow him on Twitter: @JeffSwiatek.