5 women have accused comedian Louis C.K. of sexual misconduct

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• Five women have accused Louis C.K. of sexual misconduct in a report in The New York Times.
• Their stories have similar patterns of the comedian allegedly pleasuring himself in front of women.

Five women told The New York Times that comedian, filmmaker and Emmy winner Louis C.K. has engaged in sexual misconduct in front of them, with the allegations ranging over a span of years.

The accusations range from masturbating while talking to them on the phone to masturbating in front of them in person.

The women include the comedy duo Dana Min Goodman and Julia Wolov, Abby Schachner, Rebecca Corry, and one woman who spoke to the Times on the condition of anonymity.

Louis C.K., through his publicist, Lewis Kay, declined to respond to the Times regarding the allegations. "Louis is not going to answer any questions," Kay told the Times. Business Insider reached out to representatives of Louis C.K. for further comment.

Dana Min Goodman and Julia Wolov, a Chicago-based comedy duo, told the Times that Louis C.K. invited him to his hotel room while attending the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, CO in 2002. Goodman and Wolov said that as soon as they got to his hotel room, Louis C.K. asked them if he could masturbate in front of them, which they thought was a joke. "And then he really did it," Goodman told the Times. "He proceeded to take all of his clothes off, and get completely naked, and started masturbating."

Goodman and Wolov told the Times that they soon told others about the alleged incident, but they got backlash.

Abby Schachner, a writer, illustrator and performer, told the Times that in 2003, while on a phone call with the comedian, she could hear him masturbating. She met Louis C.K. through the comedy scene, and was an admirer of his work. Schachner told the Times that the call went on for several minutes. "I definitely wasn't encouraging it. You want to believe it's not happening," she said.

Comedian Rebecca Corry told the Times that in 2005, when she appeared in a television pilot with Louis C.K., he asked if he could masturbate in front of her. "He asked if we could go to my dressing room so he could masturbate in front of me," Corry said to the Times. After declining, "His face got red and he told me he had issues." In the wake of the incident, executive producers Courtney Cox and David Arquette were informed. In an email, Cox told the Times that she felt "outrage and shock." Cox said they discussed shutting down production, but Corry decided to continue.

A fifth woman, who spoke to the Times anonymously, worked with Louis C.K. in the late 1990's on "The Chris Rock Show," where he was a writer and producer. She told the Times that he repeatedly asked if he could masturbate in front of her, and she said yes. "It was something that I knew was wrong," the woman said. "I think the big piece of why I said yes was because of the culture. He abused his power."

A co-worker of the anonymous woman who worked on "The Chris Rock Show" told the Times that she told him about the incident shortly after it happened.

Business Insider has reached out to Louis C.K.'s representation for comment.