Shari Redstone’s company accuses Moonves, CBS execs of destroying evidence

CBS Chairman and CEO Les Moonves and other executives used a self-destructing messaging app over a two-year stretch to get rid of an unknown number of key corporate documents, Shari Redstone’s National Amusements claimed in a blistering court filing unsealed on Tuesday.

The heavily redacted emergency discovery motion accuses the high-ranking CBS executives of “the systematic deletion of highly relevant documents …”

The media company’s brass used a program called TigerText to erase the key documents, according to the filing.

Redstone’s NAI, which controls roughly 80 percent of the voting power of CBS, and the Moonves-led media company are locked in a pitched court battle over control of the New York company.

The unsealing of the motion comes one day after the CBS board of directors decided to hire a law firm to head up an investigation into allegations made by six women that Moonves sexually harassed them over two decades.

Moonves allegedly forcibly touched and kissed the women during business meetings, the New Yorker reported.

At least two of the women interviewed by the New Yorker said Moonves moved to hurt their careers after they rebuffed his advances.

Moonves acknowledged behavior “decades ago” that made some women “uncomfortable,” but said he has never “misused my position to harm or hinder anyone’s career.”

At a three-hour board meeting on Monday, the CBS directors did not even vote on whether to suspend their longtime chief executive pending the investigation, Variety reported on Tuesday.

In the unsealed and partially redacted motion for discovery filed in Delaware Chancery court, NAI claims that Moonves’ lieutenant, Chief Operating Officer Joe Ianniello, and other execs used TigerText, an application that can delete messages immediately after being read, to communicate “highly relevant documents … over a two-year period.”

NAI is looking for expedited discovery in order to prevent further “spoilation” of evidence and looks to confiscate all electronic devices utilized by CBS employees who use TigerText or similar disappearing messaging services.

CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said the use of TigerText was related to the Sony hack four years ago.

“TigerText was implemented by CBS’ Information Security Group for cybersecurity reasons following the Sony hack, and was not developed or used for any nefarious or sinister communications as some have alleged,” he offered.

CBS made use of TigerText in late 2015, according to the filing. NAI said it only became aware of the use of TigerText on July 18 of this year.