Although Jesse James is hoping to salvage his marriage to Sandra Bullock, he's suddenly facing new allegations, including claims of a second affair and a report of sexual harassment.
The most incendiary allegation comes from 35-year-old Melissa Smith, who tells a tabloid she had an affair with James after they met via MySpace in 2006. Her story has close parallels to that of the first accuser, Michelle McGee. Both women are heavily tattooed strippers who allege the affairs lasted for several months while James was married to Bullock.
Smith, who lives in Huntington Beach, Calif. — not far from the home of James and Bullock — claims in an interview with the Star she would visit him at his West Coast Choppers headquarters in Long Beach, Calif., every few months, where they were intimate. She says she last saw James in 2009. Smith shopped her story and an accompanying photo of herself with James to multiple media outlets, including PEOPLE.
Other reports speak to legal tangles between James and women. According to TMZ, James paid a female executive at West Coast Choppers $700,000 in 2007 after she threatened to sue him for allegedly making sexual advances to her. Because the lawsuit was never filed, there is no documentation containing the claims.
Another woman, Deann McClung, filed an "employment complaint" against James in Los Angeles in April 2000. He, in turn, sued McClung. Her case was dismissed "with prejudice" in 2001. No information about the specific allegations in either suit is available yet.
James's rep had no comment.