Radar Online
Don Lemon is asking a judge to sanction the mam suing him over an alleged sexual assault inside a bar.
According to court documents obtained by Radar, the CNN anchor is demanding a total of $106,490.38 from Dustin Hice.
As we previously reported, Hice is suing Lemon over a 2018 incident at Murf’s Backstreet Tavern in Sag Harbor. In court, he says he noticed Lemon at the bar and went over to say hello.
Hice offered to buy Lemon a drink but the newscaster brushed him off. Later in the night, Hice claims the CNN star approached him and proceed to put his hands down his own pants.
The suit says Lemon proceeded to vigorously rub his penis and then removed his hand and shoved his fingers into Hice’s mustache.
Lemon allegedly asked Hice, “Do you like pu—y or d—k?” The anchor has moved to dismiss the suit and denies the assault ever happened.
Recently, a judge ordered the case is headed to a jury trial despite Lemon’s objections. In docs, Lemon tried to argue for the case to be heard in front of only a judge and not a jury of his peers.
A trial date has yet to be set.
Back in December, as part of the case, Hice was accused of deleting evidence. Lemon claimed Hice had deleted homophobic texts and other messages in which he appeared to tell potential witnesses they would be paid if he won the suit.
The judge did not rule that the lawsuit had to be thrown out but rather decided Lemon would have the right to tell the jury about Hice deleting evidence. Hice is trying to overturn that part of the ruling before the trial starts.
Lemon is now asking the court to award him $106k in sanctions.Hice has yet to respond to the demand but is expected to try to fight the amount.
The sexual assault lawsuit is not great for CNN or Lemon — as both are still dealing with the fallout from Jeff Zucker being forced to resign after keeping his romance with CNN’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer Allison Gollust.
Zucker kept his romance secret for years. It came out when he was being questioned as part of the network’s investigation into Chris Cuomo.
The former CNN head was asked for the date on which the romance started but he refused. As a result, he was forced to resign but Gollust has been allowed to keep her job — for now.
