“Me Too” said a former Fox News employee in a new lawsuit accusing Tucker Carlson’s “right-hand man” of sexual assault — 15 years later.
In recent days, a number of high-profile figures in the Empire State were slapped with allegations ahead of the expiration of the temporary lift on the statute of limitations provided by the Adult Survivors Act. Now included among the likes of disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) was Carlson’s executive producer Justin Wells.
Filed by former Fox News employee Andrew Delancey with accusations originating with 2007 communications from Wells, the New York Times reported, “A summons was first filed in New York State court on Nov. 22, just before the deadline under the state’s Adult Survivors Act, which provided a one-time window for people to file civil lawsuits for assaults that may have happened years or even decades ago. The full complaint was made public on Monday, when it was moved to U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.”
According to the complaint that named the producer, Fox News and Fox Corporation, before relocating to NYC from a Fox affiliate in Tampa, Florida, Wells was said to have been “showering Mr. Delancey with gifts” while reminding the complainant “that he held higher status at the Network and could, in turn, affect Mr. Delancey’s career trajectory.”
Then, in 2008 when Wells was working as a producer for Greta Van Susteren, the alleged sexual assault was said to have occurred roughly a month after Delancey moved to the Big Apple.
Andrew Delancey v. Justin W… by Sarah Rumpf
According to the complaint, Delancey believed an invite to Wells’s apartment to “pre-game” a drink before heading to a bar was meant to have included other Fox employees, and ended up being just the two of them.
“Before Mr. Delancey could finish half of his drink, out of nowhere, Wells aggressively pushed Mr. Delancey onto his bed where he violently forced his tongue into Mr. Delancey’s mouth,” alleged the filing. “At the time, Wells had a more muscular build than Mr. Delancey, and easily overpowered him.”
“Defendant Wells quickly began unbuttoning and trying to rip off Mr. Delancey’s jeans as the sexual assault progressed. Simultaneously, Wells aggressively grabbed Mr. Delancey’s genitals causing him severe pain,” the complaint continued before further claiming that after Delancey “mustered up the strength” to slow the attack and convinced Wells to stop, the defendant talked the complainant into heading up to the roof to see the view at which point a secondary assault was alleged to take place.
“As Mr. Delancey was walking up the stairs to the rooftop deck, Wells aggressively grabbed Mr. Delancey from behind, catching Mr. Delancey off guard. Wells reached around Mr. Delancey and stuck his hands down the front of Mr. Delancey’s pants while again trying to unbutton Mr. Delancey’s jeans,” read the suit.
The complainant was said to have told multiple co-workers after the incident, including one who had brought a sexual harassment claim to human resources about Wells, of which Fox News was accused of “failing to take corrective action to address” before Delancey allegedly became a victim.
Sharing a Facebook post from Oct. 2017, Delancey asserted that his personal testimony of the alleged assault had prompted Wells to reach out to him “after having no contact for several years” to say, “Hey. Saw your post. I’m sorry that happened to you. Who was it?”
The suit said, “Plaintiff was too shocked to respond.”
Attorney Harmeet Dhillon released a statement as representation for Wells that said, “This meritless legal action was filed 15 years after the alleged incident and mere days before the extended statute of limitations would have run. Mr. Wells denies the allegations unequivocally, and will contest them vigorously. This is yet another attempt by a law firm with a history of suing Fox and its former employees to cash in on frivolous allegations.”
Delancey is represented by Filippatos PLLC, the same law firm that former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg had hired leading to her $12 million settlement with the network for alleged discrimination.
Carlson also released a statement on the complaint that read, “As a general matter, if you believe you’ve been a victim of a sex crime, you have a moral obligation to alert police, so it doesn’t happen to someone else. If you wait 15 years to cash in with a civil suit, no one should take you seriously. I certainly don’t.”
In response, attorneys Parisis Filippatos and Alfredo Pelicci said on behalf of their client, “Mr. Delancey stands by each and every allegation in his complaint, which took tremendous courage to file. Mr. Carlson’s statements are a classic example of the tactics that people with power and influence use to insulate themselves from accountability and silence victims.”
“It’s also no surprise that Mr. Carlson is jumping to the defense of this right-hand man. Mr. Carlson’s credibility on this — and any other topic for that matter — now hovers at zero especially since revelations surrounding the Dominion settlement and his termination by Fox News have established a public record of Mr. Carlson’s propensity to mislead his audience,” the attorneys said.
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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