Slime & punishment
Sex-assault plaintiff claims retaliation by ABC News
An ABC News staffer is claiming that the network retaliated against her after she filed a sexual-assault lawsuit against her thenboss, Michael Corn, who was the top producer of the network’s marquee show, “Good Morning America.”
Kirstyn Crawford, a producer on the show, sued Corn, who allegedly sexually assaulted her, and ABC, claiming the network “swept” that incident and other complaints against the senior executive producer “under the rug” when they were brought to its attention.
Now, in an updated version of the lawsuit filed Wednesday, Crawford claims that after she formally registered her complaint at ABC, the network didn’t renew her three-year contract, offering instead a six-month extension with no raise.
In her lawsuit, Crawford, 31, a producer for anchor
George Stephanopoulos on “GMA,” says Corn sexually assaulted her after a work party when he was drunk during a reporting trip to Los Angeles in 2015.
The suit, which is filed in Manhattan Supreme Court,
also alleges that former ABC News producer Jill McClain was sexually assaulted by Corn when the two worked together roughly a decade ago. McClain, who left ABC in 2013, isn’t a plaintiff in the suit but is supporting Crawford’s
case, the complaint said.
Corn, who exited ABC News in April, has denied any wrongdoing. ABC News did not respond to requests seeking comment on Crawford’s allegation that the network retaliated against her.
The lawsuit also claims that ABC forced Corn, who’d managed “GMA” since 2014, to resign but that “keeping in line with ABC’s culture of sweeping sexual assault under the rug to protect its brand, ABC did not publicly acknowledge Corn’s malfeasance.”
This includes several complaints over roughly a decade by women at ABC, as well as Crawford’s description of the 2015 incident in LA that started in an Uber vehicle after a work party with the team covering the Oscars, according to the suit.
When news of the lawsuit came out in August, newly hired ABC News president Kim Godwin called for an independent investigation into how the network handled the allegations, but CNN recently reported that her calls for a probe have “infuriated” her bosses at ABC parent Disney.