Another day, another Fox News personality fired for sexual misconduct.
The conservative propaganda network has finally decided to drop its top legal analyst Andrew Napolitano after yet another man has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him.
According to a lawsuit filed on Monday by Fox Business production assistant John Fawcett, Napolitano “sexually harassed numerous young male employees during his tenure at Fox News.”
Related: A bunch of Fox News anchors have just been accused of rape and sexual harassment in damning lawsuit
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27-year-old Fawcett claims Napolitano, who served as a New Jersey Superior Court judge from 1987 to 1995 before joining Fox News in 1998, got “awkwardly close” to him during an interaction in 2019.
During the encounter, Fawcett says Napolitano began stroking his arm before inviting him to his horse farm in New Jersey and “suggestively” saying he could get his hands “really dirty.”
The lawsuit also alleges that network execs knew about Napolitano’s conduct but refused to do anything about it. In fact, Fawcett says “they immediately started laughing” because “it was common knowledge that Judge Napolitano sexually harassed young men at Fox News.”
Related: Another high profile anchor just got fired from Fox News
Fox News denies this, but it did confirm that Napolitano has been let go from its roster.
“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,” Fox said in a statement released on Monday. “The network and Judge Napolitano have since parted ways.”
“Fox News takes all allegations of misconduct seriously,” the company added, insisting that it is “committed to providing a safe, transparent, and collaborative workplace environment for all our employees.”
As for Napolitano, he hasn’t commented on the matter, but this isn’t the first time he’s been accused of sexual misconduct.
Related: Fox News analyst accidentally reveals adult browsing habits in screenshot gone wrong
Last September, he was accused of “forcible sodomy” and other sex crimes by a man named Charles Corbishley, who appeared as a defendant in Napolitano’s court in the late 1980s.
That same month, he was also accused of sexually harassing a waiter named James Kruzelnick, who claimed Napolitano invited him back to his house after coming into the restaurant where he worked and coerced him into performing “bizarre” sex acts in his living room.
Kruzelnick’s lawsuit stated:
As defendant Napolitano entered the living room, Plaintiff observed that Napolitano’s pants were down, and his penis was fully erect and exposed. Plaintiff was truly shocked by Napolitano’s conduct, and didn’t know how to react. Before Plaintiff could say anything, Napolitano said “I am really into certain things” and “I want you to do something for me.”
Thereafter, defendant Napolitano walked up to Plaintiff’s chair, and suddenly threw himself onto Plaintiff’s lap. Napolitano then told Plaintiff that “I want you to start slapping me really hard.” Before Plaintiff could say anything in response, defendant Andrew Napolitano then demanded that James Kruzelnick spank his exposed buttocks while Napolitano masturbated on his lap.
Plaintiff was repelled by Napolitano’s request and had no interest in playing this bizarre “sex game.” But when Plaintiff told Napolitano that he did not want to spank him, Napolitano shouted at him: “Just f*cking do it!”
James Kruzelnick began spanking Andrew Napolitano on his buttocks while Napolitano masturbated. Napolitano then demanded that James Kruzelnick call him “son” while Plaintiff played the role of “daddy” and spanked Napolitano. Thereafter, Andrew Napolitano ejaculated onto one of Plaintiff James Kruzelnick’s shoes, leaving Plaintiff feeling disgusted.
Tom Clare, Napolitano’s attorney, denied Kruzelnick’s claims last fall, calling the whole thing “nonsense” and a “smear.”
Graham Gremore is the Features Editor and a Staff Writer at Queerty. Follow him on Twitter @grahamgremore.
Mister P
There are limits to how much Fox will pay out for sexual
CatholicXXX
looks like johns career isn’t going the way he wants it to so he’s using this opportunity to milk the current scandals. He works for fox, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this “harassment” was actually just a good job pat.
TomG
Now you know something is wrong when they use the words sex abuse and horse farm in the same sentence.
Mister P
There are limits to how much Fox will pay out for sexual abuse claims. It doesn’t seem to bother them too much until they cross some line. There is big money in telling lies for profit, but there are limits and sometimes they have to let someone go.
Robert Bradley
Telling lies for profit is their business model. And when sued for the lies…. Then we are entertainment value only. That is one sick bunch of a$$holes… all reamed out by tRump.
Cam
Fox only stopped protecting him when he started pointing out that Trump was lying about the election being fraudulent.
FOX News loves sexual harassment as long as the harassers tow the company line.
gregg2010
What a way to ruin a perfectly good pair of shoes.
Kangol2
Napolitano became expendable when he started criticizing Don the Con. I don’t doubt he’s on the DL with the fetishes detailed above, but so long as he was a good little right-wing soldier, they were going to protect him. So which of the creeps working there is going to be the next to be exposed, like Napolitano, Roger Ailes, O’Reilly (Mr. Loofah), Kimberly Guilfreakazoid, etc.?
Robert Bradley
More freaks at FOX Snews than a Chicago bath house…. Sorry Chicago……
tjack47
At least he had the balls to call out Trump’s bullshit. I don’t care if he was in the films Equus or Zoo.
Caddy4J
Do you really care?? I mean, do you really care what happens at Fox? Much more important things happening in the world. I would also like your comments on Andrew ‘the sexual harasser” Cuomo. or does that not matter because it was women that were harassed? Pick your topics!
Heywood Jablowme
Sure, this is interesting because Fox News in general is so anti-gay. I had no idea Napolitano was into men (or tries to be, lol). As for Cuomo, do you see a gay angle there that Queerty doesn’t?
Hdtex
Start your own blog or STFU
Cam
It’s cute how the right wing troll brings out a screename, then hits all the threads with it and somehow keeps thinking it isn’t obvious.
We get it, you’re desperate to deflect from the fact that the right wing network seems to have a huge number of sexual abusers on staff.
mailliw110
I’m still waiting for the fake moon landing to be exposed.
Fahd
Fox News gives me a headache, I never watch it. The judge should’ve hired a sex worker instead of pawing the help, but the littlest bit of power seems to intoxicate some people. Fox obviously decided they were going to try to avoid having to pay for the judge’s harassment, so they denied prior knowledge and fired him – the judge lost in the cold calculation. There’s no morality involved. .Sounds like the plaintiff has enough, and I wish him well in the suit.
trolldiva
Did anyone else read “horse farm” in the headline and think there were some Catherine-the-Great-type shenanigans going on?
RyanMBecker
I’m not a fan of Napolitano but do people really find James Kruzelnick’s accusations credible? Unlike Charles Corbishley, who was a defendant in Napolitano’s court, there were no power issues here. Their only relationship was that he was a server where Napolitano ate. If anything, he had the power because any recording of the encounter can embarrass and ruin Napolitano’s career. Even evidence that Napolitano propositioned him is embarrassing enough.
If I “was repelled by Napolitano’s request and had no interest in playing this bizarre sex game,” I’d simply leave. Yet he complied, allowed him to lie on his lap, and preceded to spank him to climax. Seriously? Uh no. I find the story entirely unbelievable.
Sorry, he is no more credible than the “straight, religious” bartender who sued Don Lemon for sexual harassment.
Cam
For somebody who isn’t a fan you sure seem to know all the details of this situation.
RyanMBecker
At the risk of sounding like a defender of Fox (which I HATE), I also don’t find John Fawcett particularly credible. Let’s ignore the fact that I don’t find him particularly attractive, thus an unlikely target of Napolitano’s advances… But it looks like he’s just building a case to sue Fox for a lot of money and Napolitano was an easy target because of prior accusations. The single encounter he claims happened is barely sexual harassment and certainly caused no quantifiable damage. Fawcett, who is white, also accused his boss, Larry Kudlow, of racism against blacks. It really just sounds like one massive lawsuit against Fox without any provable damage to himself. My guess is that he was hoping for a settlement so that he wouldn’t go to the press.
One of the more interesting things about Fawcett is that his LinkedIn profile credits him with two Congressional campaign positions, but he omits the candidate’s names or even political affiliations. He strikes me as somewhat of an opportunist.
I love seeing Fox suffer losses in reputation as well as dollars — but not at the expense of truth. I hope all these accusations are true because otherwise, we’ll have a boy-cries-wolf situation and future accusations will be ignored.
Cam
So you “Aren’t a fan” but know all the details of the case, went and studied the linking profile of one of the accusers etc.
Sounds like some Napalatano interns have a google alert set to go off whenever his name comes up.
dinard38
James Kruzelnick’s accusations are ridiculous, and that shit will be tossed out of court. How in the hell was he coerced?? He wasn’t drugged. He wasn’t drunk. He doesn’t work for Napalatano so he had no means to coerce Kruzelnick. He’s just an opportunist.
John Fawcett’s claim will probably go nowhere as well. Oh no!!!! Napalatano got up close to you, stroked your arm and invited you to a horse farm. That’s sexual harassment??? Yeah, ok. Fawcett is just another opportunist.
PoetDaddy
So why should we think that Fox News “takes all allegations of misconduct seriously,” or that it is “committed to providing a safe, transparent, and collaborative workplace environment for all our employees,” when it lies through its crooked teeth every time its on the air without the slightest thought of the harm Fox News causes daily?
Invader7
To all of the skeptics of Kruzelnicks accusations : What if they’re ALL true? If that was YOU and people doubted your assault took place that would be messed up. Considering it’s FAUX news , there’s a 50 /50 chance it may be true..Some of you are really messed up ..