Frugal Gourmet To Pay Seven Men In Settlement

Jeff Smith, known to millions as the Frugal Gourmet, has reached an out-of-court settlement in which he will pay seven men who claimed that the television cooking-show host molested them as teenagers years ago.

Smith's attorney, Ed Winskill, yesterday confirmed settlement of the lawsuits, but would not disclose the terms. Smith was unavailable for comment. As part of the settlement, the plaintiffs are not supposed to discuss the terms either. They could not be reached for comment.

The plaintiffs included six young men who as teenagers had worked at the Chaplain's Pantry or the Judicial Annex, Tacoma businesses that were owned by Smith and his wife, Patty.

The plaintiffs alleged that Smith used coercion and alcohol in grooming them for sex while they were employed by Smith in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The lawsuit maintained Smith also picked up a 15-year-old hitchhiker on Pacific Avenue in Tacoma, drove to a side street, and sexually assaulted him. The hitchhiker's parents were also plaintiffs.

Smith was never charged with crimes relating to the alleged incidents and has maintained his innocence.

Smith was one of the most popular hosts ever to appear on a television cooking show, attracting 5 million to 6 million viewers weekly.

At one time, 300 Public Broadcasting Stations carried his shows, including KCTS-TV in Seattle. The show has ceased production.

Nat Katzman, of A la Carte Communications, which produced the Frugal Gourmet series, said there are no plans to produce more.

"But I wish we could," he added.

The men filed a civil suit against Smith last year, claiming that he had used his power as an employer to force them to perform sex acts with him. Smith denied the allegations.

Mike Shaffer, attorney for the plaintiffs, said 12 other former employees, who were not part of the lawsuit, had been expected to testify that similar things had happened to them. They had filed affidavits with Pierce County Superior Court.

Smith was first sued several years ago by former employee Clinton Smith, no relation, who claimed he had been coerced into sex when he worked at the Chaplain's Pantry in the early 1980s. In his lawsuit, Clinton Smith, who was convicted of stealing money from the restaurant in 1981 and sentenced to four years in prison, claimed Jeff Smith had paid him $300,000 to keep quiet.

That lawsuit was dismissed in February for unstated reasons.

Jeff Smith, now 59, was ordained as a United Methodist minister in 1965. He served as a chaplain and assistant professor at the University of Puget Sound from 1966 until 1972, when he opened the Chaplain's Pantry. He often infused his talks about food with spirituality and was to do a series about food from the Bible on a religious cable channel when the lawsuit was filed. The Odyssey network canceled the series.

Since the lawsuit was filed, his public presence, whether in his Pike Place Market neighborhood or at book signings in kitchen shops, has been minimal.

His latest cookbook, "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks with Wine," is to be released this month.

Seattle Times staff reporter Janet Tu contributed to this report.