Names and faces
Tomi Lahren, the conservative commentator and talk show host, on Friday sued The Blaze, her employer, and its founder, former Fox News host and radio personality Glenn Beck, claiming they fired her to retaliate after she voiced support for abortion rights. In a March 17 appearance on the ABC show The View, Lahren, 24, told the hosts that she believed in limited government in all aspects and that she supported the right to have an abortion. “I’m for limited government,” she said, “so stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body as well.” After the comments were broadcast, The Blaze said her nightly television show, Tomi, would be suspended. In the 27-page lawsuit filed Friday in Dallas, Lahren’s attorney said nothing in his client’s employment contract prohibited Lahren’s comments on The View. The Blaze said in a statement Friday that Lahren was still employed and questioned how she could sue for wrongful termination. Brian Lauten, Lahren’s attorney, said she was still being paid, but The Blaze had told her she no longer had a job. They are asking in the lawsuit for The Blaze to allow her to pursue employment elsewhere. Her contract expires in September. Lahren alleges in her lawsuit that the company’s human resources director told her a few days after the suspension that she was now terminated. Her corporate email was turned off, yellow caution tape was stretched over her office and she was urged to “go dark” on social media. In addition, the suit claims that Beck and others at The Blaze were trying to sabotage her reputation and career. They have “embarked on a public smear campaign,” it says.
Jersey Shore star Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino and his brother were hit with additional tax fraud charges Friday after federal prosecutors say they filed fake tax returns and claimed that luxury car and clothing purchases were business expenses. Federal prosecutors said Friday that Michael Sorrentino was indicted on charges including tax evasion, structuring bank deposits to avoid reporting requirements and falsifying records. Marc Sorrentino was charged with falsifying records to obstruct a grand jury investigation. They previously pleaded innocent to charges in 2014 alleging that they filed bogus tax returns on nearly $9 million and claimed millions in personal expenses as business expenses. Michael Sorrentino’s attorney Henry Klingeman said his client will enter a plea of innocent when the brothers appear in court April 17. Michael Sorrentino appeared on all six seasons of the MTV reality TV show Jersey Shore, which followed the lives of a group of young Italian-Americans at a house on New Jersey’s Atlantic shore and ran from 2009-12.