A lawsuit filed in 1997 accused potential presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg of telling an employee to “kill” her unborn baby.

The lawsuit, filed by former Bloomberg L.P. employee Sekiko Sekai Garrison, alleged that Bloomberg referred to Garrison’s baby and told her to “kill it,” according to the New York Times. Garrison’s lawsuit also alleged that Bloomberg grumbled, “Great, no. 16,” which the complaint said referred to the 16 pregnant women in his company, the Times reported in 2001.

Garrison also alleged that Bloomberg subjected women in his company to “repeated and unwelcome” sexual comments.

Bloomberg, who is the former mayor of New York, is reportedly pondering joining the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

Bloomberg has denied that he said this, the Times reports. The lawsuit was settled without Bloomberg admitting any guilt and with Bloomberg paying an undisclosed amount of money.

“I settled because the lawyers believed the suit could drag on for years and disrupt the company’s focus and that of our employees,” he said in a statement the Daily News, the Times reported in 2001.

Garrison’s lawyer Neal Brickman told the Times that “we settled to avoid the distraction and expense of litigation.”

Bloomberg’s staff said in 2001 that he also passed a polygraph test about these comments, a test that Bloomberg says he took “because I expected that those allegations would surface in the news media as I began to explore the possibility of entering the mayor’s race.”

Bloomberg L.P. did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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