CNN, famously known as America’s premier Fake News network, might want to require alcohol counseling sessions for its on-air personnel.
On Monday, video of network star Chris Cuomo’s curses and threats against a bar patron went viral, and now another bibulous encounter, alleged in a lawsuit, has embarrassed the hate-Trump network and one of its marquee names.
In July 2018, a lawsuit filed on Sunday alleges, the network’s homosexual anchor Don Lemon sexually assaulted a man in a bar in the swanky Hamptons of New York.
Lemon denies any such assault, but that doesn’t help the reputation of the anti-Trump network.
Lemon Drop
The lawsuit filed in Suffolk County, first reported by Mediaite, accuses Lemon of assaulting one Dustin Hice at Murf’s Backstreet Tavern in Sag Harbor.
Hice went to Murf’s after working his own bartending shift at The Old Stove Pub in Sagponack. At Murf’s, the lawsuit alleges, Hice saw Lemon with friends, and “being cordial, Plaintiff tried to get Mr. Lemon’s attention and offered to buy Mr. Lemon a drink, a ‘Lemon Drop’, a vodka cocktail.”
Lemon soured at the offer, the lawsuit alleges, and told Hice he was “just trying to have a good time.”
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Lemon and Hice rejoined their friends after the brief encounter, and “there was no further interaction thereafter until Mr. Lemon’s assault upon Plaintiff.”
“Sometime later that evening, unexpectedly,” the lawsuit alleges, “Mr. Lemon walked towards Plaintiff and his colleagues inside of Murf’s” and things took a bizarre turn:
At such time, Mr. Lemon, who was wearing a pair of shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt, put his hand down the front of his own shorts, and vigorously rubbed his genitalia, removed his hand and shoved his index and middle fingers into Plaintiff’s moustache under Plaintiff’s nose.
Mr. Lemon intensely pushed his fingers against Plaintiff’s face under Plaintiff’s nose, forcing Plaintiff’s head to thrust backward as Defendant repeatedly asked Plaintiff “Do you like p**sy or d**k?” While saying this, Mr. Lemon continued to shove his fingers into Plaintiff’s face with aggression and hostility.
At that, the lawsuit alleges, Hice, “shocked and humiliated … fled the bar” and stayed outside for a few minutes. He was “devastated” by the “demeaning unprovoked and offensive assault.”
The assault made it “difficult to continue working at The Old Stove or socializing at all in the Hamptons” because the “incident occurred in a public bar” and “many of the patrons who frequented Murf’s witnessed and talked about what Mr. Lemon had done and joked about it.”
Even worse, word must have gotten around. Customers showed up at Hice’s bar to “cheekily order” Lemon Drops and “laughed at Plaintiff’s expense.”
Adding insult to that injury, “Plaintiff consistently overheard people talking in whispers about what had happened at Murf’s and some even brazenly questioned him about it while he was trying to work.”
So now, the lawsuit alleges, Hice can hardly work because he’s afraid to cross paths with Lemon. Hice has “suffered feelings of shame, humiliation, anxiety, anger, and guilt,” the lawsuit alleges. He can’t sleep and has suicidal thoughts.
Returning to work has been all but impossible, and so the lawsuit seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages.
Lemon Replies
Lemon denies the account and CNN says Hice hates the network, reported Mediate.
“The plaintiff in this lawsuit has previously displayed a pattern of contempt for CNN on his social media accounts,” CNN told Mediaite. “This claim follows his unsuccessful threats and demands for an exorbitant amount of money from Don Lemon. Don categorically denies these claims and this matter does not merit any further comment at this time.”
As well, Mediate reported, Hice sought $1.5 million from the CNN host in exchange for not filing the lawsuit. Lemon refused the demand because, he said, he had done nothing wrong.
Of CNN’s response that Hice hates the network and seeks a big payout, Hice’s attorney had this to say:
The assertion that Mr. Hice would put himself through the painful process of filing a sexual assault lawsuit against his attacker all because he doesn’t like a cable TV station is ludicrous. Rather, he took down his social media accounts on the day he filed the lawsuit against Don Lemon because he’s a private citizen and wants to protect himself from CNN’s heavy-handed tactics.
“Fredo” Cuomo
The report on the lawsuit comes at an inopportune time for the network, given the outrageous behavior of Lemon’s colleague, Chris Cuomo, at a bar in New York.
Video gone viral shows Cuomo F-bombing and threatening to throw a man down the stairs after the man called Cuomo “Fredo,” the name of the weak, stupid, incompetent brother of Michael Corleone in the Godfather franchise.
Photo: AP Images
