from www.nydailynews.com – A second woman came forward Tuesday to put her name and face behind accusations that Herman Cain sexually harassed her when she worked for him.

Karen Kraushaar [pictured], a spokeswoman for the Inspector General’s Office in the U.S Treasury Department and former journalist, is not one to make up anything, let alone serious allegations, friends and co-workers said Tuesday.

“She is a professional who had to leave her job because of Herman Cain. It is quite simple,” a former National Restaurant Association employee told the Daily News, after online publication The Daily revealed her identity.

Kraushaar’s lawyer, Joel Bennett, acknowledged that she was one of the two women who received a financial settlement of about $45,000 after accusing Cain of sexual harassment in the 1990s.

Kraushaar told the New York Times she hoped she and the other accusers might hold a joint press conference “where all of the women would be together with our attorneys and all of this evidence would be considered together.”

“These allegations can be considered together as a body of evidence.”

Cain said Kraushaar’s allegations were the only ones he remembered, and that the National Restaurant Association had found the allegations were not credible.

“When she made her accusation, they were found to be baseless and she could not find anyone to corroborate her.”

Cain claims the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also found “no basis” in the claim — though the agency has refused comment.

Bennett, however, told MSNBC it was an “an internal investigation [that Cain] denied [ever occurred] but it was done by employees of NRA under the supervision of Cain.”

Cain insists the worst allegation Kraushaar made was that she had said he told her she was the same height as his wife, and pointed to under his chin.

“That was the one gesture that I remember,” Cain said.

“The door was open. My secretary was sitting there. It wasn’t anything behind closed doors. I gestured because her height, comparing it to my wife’s height, end of story.

“That one I remember because that was the one that my general counsel came to me and said, the one that appears to be the one that she was most upset about was that,” he said.

But that’s not how Bennett, remembers it , telling MSNBC his “client filed a detailed, written complaint in 1999 specifying multiple incidents of sexual harassment — my client stands by her complaint.”

He’s said Kraushaar’s allegations were similar to Sharon Bialek’s accusation of groping — and that it’s “up to [the] NRA” to disclose the settlement papers.

Friends describe Kraushaar, 55, as a level-headed, married woman who would not fabricate explosive claims.

Kraushaar has been in the spotlight before in her job as a government spokesman, including the contentious custody battle for Elian Gonzalez.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/karen-kraushaar-leave-job-herman-cain-sex-harass-accuser-article-1.974734#ixzz1dDofWYWx