Horatio Sanz accuser seeks to add more ‘SNL’ alums to lawsuit
By Michelle Watson and Claudia Dominguez, CNN
More than a year after a Pennsylvania woman filed a lawsuit against comedian Horatio Sanz, SNL Studios and NBCUniversal, she’s filed a proposed amended complaint seeking to add Tracy Morgan, Jimmy Fallon, and “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels as defendants, arguing they enabled Sanz’s alleged misconduct.
In 2021, the woman said Sanz, a former “SNL” cast member began grooming her when she was around 14 and sexually assaulted her when she was 17 years old, according to court documents.
At the time of the initial suit, the woman, who is identified only as Jane Doe, alleged that Sanz sexually abused her by “kissing her, groping her breasts, groping her buttocks, and digitally penetrating her genitals forcibly and without Plaintiff’s consent” at and after “SNL” parties, CNN previously reported.
Sanz has denied the allegations.
In the proposed amended complaint filed Tuesday, the woman says Fallon was “aware of Sanz’s online grooming efforts as he was of his in-person conduct.” The filings also claim NBC, Morgan, Fallon and Michaels “enabled Sanz’s crimes of sexual assault and battery” by “providing the physical space whereby Sanz assaulted Doe and by repeatedly ignoring and even encouraging Doe’s underage presence at SNL after-parties and after-after-parties.”
The new proposed complaint comes as a result of New York City’s recently amended Gender Motivated Violence Act (GMVA). The GMVA includes a one year “lookback window,” allowing accusers to sue their alleged abusers and those accused of enabling that conduct, effective next March.
According to the act, violation “means a crime of violence committed because of gender or on the basis of gender, and due, at least in part, to an animus based on the victim’s gender.”
In a brief in support of her proposed amendment, she explains, “While Doe’s claims are currently barred by the statute of limitations, on March 1, 2023 (and until March 1, 2024), Plaintiff’s claims will not be time-barred, and she will be entitled to bring her GMVA claims against all proposed defendants as a result of the look-back window in the amended GMVA.” She asks the court to grant her request to amend her complaint to add the GMVA claims now in the interest of judicial economy.
An NBC spokesperson said to CNN in an email, “Regardless of Jane Doe’s changing narratives, NBC intends to renew its motion to dismiss.”
NBCUniversal filed a motion to dismiss in April, arguing that “the Complaint fails to set forth facts showing that in 2002 NBCU was aware of Sanz’s alleged predatory behavior or of any propensity he had for sexual assault,” and noting that “Plaintiff does not allege that she, or anyone else, informed NBCU nineteen years ago of the facts she alleges in her Complaint today.”
NBCU also argued that she did not adequately allege a “causal connection between NBCU’s alleged breach of duty and Sanz’s alleged sexual assault during a party hosted by a co-worker at an off-premises location.”
Sanz filed an answer in April to the initial complaint, denying the allegations. His filing also alleges numerous defenses to Doe’s claims, including that her claims are not timely filed and that, to the extent he engaged in any of the alleged conduct, Jane Doe consented to the alleged actions.
CNN has reached out to representatives for “SNL”, Fallon, Morgan, Michaels and Sanz for comment.
In the new proposed complaint, Jane Doe says she texted Sanz in 2019 and “he claimed said he ‘felt terrible’ about” what he’d done.
“However, he avoided taking full responsibility, saying, ‘…I let us get closer and closer. I was a weak man.'” the suit said.
The suit asks for monetary relief for legal fees as well as compensatory and punitive damages.
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