Yahoo Finance Andrew Napolitano Out At Fox News Amid Sex Harassment Lawsuit
Fox News has ended its relationship with legal analyst and former judge Andrew Napolitano after a sexual harassment lawsuit was filed on Monday.
Fox associate producer John Fawcett, 27, alleged in the suit that Napolitano had “sexually harassed numerous young male employees during his tenure at Fox News.” Fawcett claimed that in 2019, Napolitano stood “awkwardly close” to him in an elevator at Fox News headquarters and began stroking his arm. Fawcett also claimed that Napolitano told him he could visit his horse farm and get hands “really dirty.”
Fawcett said in the lawsuit that he reported Napolitano’s misconduct to the network’s human resources department, but no one took any immediate action against him. However, in a statement provided to HuffPost, Fox News said that “upon first learning of John Fawcett’s allegations against Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News Media immediately investigated the claims and addressed the matter with both parties.”
The network and Napolitano have since parted ways.
“We take all allegations of misconduct seriously, are committed to providing a safe, transparent, and collaborative workplace environment for all our employees and took immediate, appropriate action,” Fox News stated.
Fawcett, who’s an associate producer on former White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow’s program on Fox Business, also alleged that Kudlow had “used ethnic slurs and made sexually inappropriate comments about women in front of multiple staff members.” The suit also claims that Kudlow “blocked a Congressman from appearing as a guest on his program because of the Congressman’s race.”
Fox News said that the additional allegations were “completely baseless and nothing more than a desperate attempt at a payday by trying the case in the court of public opinion.”
Neither Kudlow nor Napolitano — whose time on the network dwindled after harsh attacks on former President Donald Trump — could be reached for comment.
Napolitano was accused of sexual assault last year by a North Carolina man and by a waiter in New Jersey, where Napolitano used to be a judge. Napolitano denied the accusations and the network stood by him.
Fox has been rocked by multiple accusations of sexual harassment and lawsuits over the years. The late Fox News chairman Roger Ailes was forced out after several accusations of sexual harassment as was network co-president Bill Shine and Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly, among others.
Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberley Guilfoyle, left Fox in 2018 after a female assistant accused her of repeated sexual harassment and demanded damages. The complaints resulted in a multi-million dollar out-of-court settlement.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
