Jimmy Fallon And Tracy Morgan Named In Sexual Assault Case Against SNL Star
A woman has named Jimmy Fallon and Tracy Morgan in a new sexual assault case against another SNL member that shared the stage with the two comedians.
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A woman filed suit against former Saturday Night Live star Horatio Sanz for sexual assault in August 2021. The woman, identified as Jane Doe, is now reportedly asking the court’s permission to add Jimmy Fallon, Lorne Michaels, and Tracy Morgan as defendants. She is arguing that the three men enabled Sanz for his misconduct. The allegations stemmed from uncomfortable encounters with Sanz when the accuser was a teen fan of the show. She claimed that Sanz engaged in explicit conversations with her on AOL Instant Messenger some 20 years ago.
The accuser also claimed that Sanz kissed, groped, and attempted to penetrate her at a party in May 2002. According to the complaint, the accuser and her friends attended SNL after partiers in the early 2000s, and Jimmy Fallon and Sanz would ask inappropriate questions regarding her age. The suit alleges that Morgan rented out space for the parties where the alleged groping incident occurred. The original complaint was filed by attorney Jeffery P. Fitz, who alleged that Fallon and other NBCU employees should’ve known about Sanz’s sexual misconduct. NBCUniversal filed a motion to dismiss the complaint in April. They argue the network isn’t responsible for Sanz’s off-hours conduct.
The network lawyers wrote the following:
“Employers owe no general duty to protect third-persons from the possibility of sexual abuse by their employees.”
Sanz was a featured member of SNL from 1998 through 2006. The interactions between the plaintiff and Sanz began after she set up a fan site for Jimmy Fallon. Apparently, Fallon and Sanz emailed the plaintiff various times in the year 2000. During her first meeting with Sanz, the former SNL star allegedly kissed her on the cheek and grabbed her by the waist. She and her friends would regularly travel to New York to wait for SNL autographs. When she was 16, the plaintiff was served alcohol during one of the SNL after-parties. In 2001, she and Sanz began instant messaging one another, in which Sanz allegedly kept bringing the conversation to “sexual experiences, sexual activities, sexual fantasies, masturbation and Sanz’s instruction of plaintiff in sexual acts.”
According to Variety, these conversations between the plaintiff and Sanz continued into 2002. The plaintiff alleged that Sanz physically touched her at more parties. This apparently all occurred when Jimmy Fallon was still a featured star in SNL. It wasn’t until November 2019 that Sanz admitted to feeling “terrible” about the situation. Doe hired a lawyer Susan Crumiller, who is seeking a hearing on September 8th to possibly add Fallon, Michaels, and Morgan as defendants. A spokesperson for NBC suggested that they plan to have the suit thrown out as soon as possible.
Jimmy Fallon made his SNL debut at the start of the show’s twenty-fourth season in 1998. During his time on the show, he became known for his tendency to break character during skits. Fallon would use his SNL notoriety to host two MTV Movie Awards and star in films. He’d continued his working relationship with NBC when he agreed to host The Tonight Show in 2014.
