On July 1, 1998, cooking-show host Jeff Smith, who had achieved national prominence as The Frugal Gourmet, the most popular televised cooking show in history, agrees to pay more than $5 million to seven men who accuse him of sexual abuse. The settlement comes days before the July 6, 1998, trial is to begin in Pierce County Superior Court. Initially, three civil suits involving eight men were filed in 1997 against Smith, his wife Patricia, and two of their corporations. One suit is later dismissed and the remaining two cases are consolidated. All but one of the plaintiffs are former teenage employees or interns at Smith’s Tacoma-based restaurant and catering businesses who claimed sexual abuse from 1973 to 1981. The eighth man alleged he was hitchhiking in 1992 when Smith picked him up and sexually molested him. The claims are settled without Smith making an apology or admitting guilt, and he is never charged with a crime.
The Frugal Gourmet
Jeffrey Lee Smith (1939-2004) was born in Seattle and raised, along with his brother Gregory (1936-2015), by a single mother after his father left the family when Smith was 12. His met his wife Patricia (Patty) when he was a divinity student at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. The couple married in 1966 and had two sons. Smith became a United Methodist minister and was hired in 1967 as chaplain at the University of Puget Sound. There he created a cooking class he called Food as Sacrament and Celebration. Its success led him to leave the university in 1972 and open up a cooking school and catering business he called the Chaplain’s Pantry. Its success became the catalyst for Smith to start his own cooking show in 1974 on KTPS (now KTBC), a Tacoma public television station.
Called The Frugal Gourmet, the show was a huge hit and later distributed nationally by PBS. The Frugal Gourmet quickly became the highest-rated televised cooking show in history, with an estimated 15 million viewers every week. Smith went on to write more than a dozen cookbooks which broke sales records in their category. In January 1997, his rise to fame imploded when the first of three lawsuits was filed in Pierce County Superior Court alleging he had sexually abused a former teenage employee decades earlier.
The First Two Plaintiffs
On January 23, 1997, a 36-year-old Tacoma man called "Boy A" (later identified as George Heitman) filed a civil suit alleging that Smith had sexually abused him when he was 15 years old. Heitman had been an employee at the Chaplain’s Pantry, Smith’s restaurant and catering business in Tacoma. The suit also named Smith’s wife Patty as a co-defendant. Heitman, who later said he suffered from mental health and substance use issues triggered by the sexual abuse, had attempted to speak out two years before the suit was filed when he called in anonymously to a talk show on KVI, a Seattle radio station. Heitman’s lawsuit did not seek a specified dollar amount. As his attorneys put it: "The purpose of the lawsuit is to see to it the abuse stops. Our client doesn’t need the money" ("Suit Claims Frugal Gourmet Sexually Abused Teen Boys").
The lawsuit contended that Smith had a pattern of abusing teenagers and young men. Some were students at the University of Puget Sound; others were interns or employees in one of his two Tacoma-based food businesses, Chaplain’s Pantry or Judicial Annex.
In April, six additional men filed suit and their stories were similar: "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" ("Frugal Gourmet to Pay Seven Men in Settlement"). The men claimed they were just now coming forward because it took decades for them to realize the full extent of the psychological and physical trauma. Now adults, some of the men still lived in Washington; others resided in California and Wisconsin. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs was F. Mike Shaffer.
One of the claimants ("Boy B," later identified as D. Rownan) alleged his assault took place in 1992 when, as a 14-year-old hitchhiker, he was picked up and sexually abused by a drunken Jeff Smith. Rownan and his parents joined the suit.
A Surprise Earlier Settlement
Once the documents were filed, a new detail emerged: "Documents filed in the state Court of Appeals show for the first time that Smith agreed to pay an eighth man $1.5 million in 1991 in exchange for silence about that man’s claims of sexual assault. Smith has repeatedly denied payments were made" ("Frugal Gourmet Settles Case with His Accusers").
The eighth man was named Clinton Smith (no relation), who was convicted of forgery and stealing money when he was employed at the Chaplain’s Pantry. When confronted, he told detectives he stole to get back at Jeff Smith, who had sexually abused him three weeks earlier. Clint Smith told someone about the abuse and his payments stopped. "An arbitrator then ruled that Smith wasn’t entitled to the full settlement. He got a total of $550,000, said the earlier lawsuit" ("Frugal Gourmet Accused of Molestation").
Although Jeff Smith continued to deny he paid Clint Smith any money, a later investigation by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer found copies of cashier’s checks that, "show Clinton Smith obtained large amounts of money in the summer of 1991. The checks do not show the source of the money" ("Suit Claims the Frugal Gourmet Sexually Abused Teen Boys").
In February 1998, the suit filed by Clint Smith was dismissed for unstated reasons. Pierce County Superior Judge Frederick W. Fleming consolidated the other two lawsuits, and a trial date was set, initially for April 28, 1998, and then moved to early July. "In recent months, Smith and his lawyer, [Ed] Winskill, were largely silent. They worked behind the scenes to legally limit the information that could be brought up in court and to persuade the judge to seal documents filed in the case. Winskill succeeded in getting one of the original plaintiffs, Clint Smith (no relation to the chef) removed from the case" ("Smith Settles Abuse Suit"). A total of 300 possible witnesses were identified by both sides.
Smith’s wife, Patty, was named as a co-defendant in the suits, which claimed she had worked to conceal her husband’s actions. Patty Smith’s lawyers tried to block her from testifying at the trial, citing marital privilege and arguing that she should not be forced to testify about her husband’s behavior or business dealings.
Settlement Reached
In late 1997, Smith at first offered $750,000 to settle three of the claims, an amount he later increased to $2 million. Both offers were rejected. Then in a settlement reached July 1, 1998, less than a week before a civil trial was to begin on July 6, 1998, in Pierce County Superior Court, Smith agreed to pay more than $5 million to seven accusers. The settlement terms included no apology or admission of wrongdoing. "Smith has not been charged with any crime. The statute of limitations on all the alleged offenses has run out. He has denied all the accusations and would not comment after the settlement was reached" ("Television’s 'Frugal Gourmet' Settles Seven Molestation Lawsuits").
Most of the settlement ($4.75 million) was paid by insurers of Smith’s business enterprises and not from Jeff or Patty Smith’s personal assets. The judgment, filed August 11, 1998, did not specify how the funds were to be divided among the plaintiffs. When contacted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for comment, Jeff Smith was quoted as saying: "I'm sorry. I'm cooking lunch for my staff. Call my lawyer in Tacoma. Thank you" ("Television’s 'Frugal Gourmet' Settles Seven Molestation Lawsuits").
Several of the accusers were unhappy with the confidentiality clause. "Plaintiff Chris Thomas, a Southern California utility employee, said he reluctantly went along with the settlement because most of the other plaintiffs were apprehensive about testifying at the trial. 'It was my intent to take this case to trial,' he said. 'I believe the public had a right to know what went on'" ("Smith Settles Abuse Suit").
The Frugal Gourmet cooking show continued to air while the lawsuits were underway, but after the settlement, the show came to a halt. Smith kept a low profile for the next six years, conducting research for a new cookbook and appearing occasionally at fundraising events. He died in his sleep on July 7, 2004, at the age of 65, leaving behind his wife and two sons.
