A Pennsylvania woman filed legal papers today in an attempt to add Jimmy Fallon, Tracy Morgan and Lorne Michaels to a 2021 lawsuit in which she accuses then-Saturday Night Live castmember Horatio Sanz of sexually assaulting her when she was 17.
According to the filing, Michaels fostered a predatory environment at SNL in which visibly underage teenage girls were a regular presence at the show’s “after-parties” and “after-after parties.” It further claims that alcohol was provided to teens at those parties by NBC, which was named in the original lawsuit. Today’s filing claims that Fallon and Morgan were willing participants in the party culture that enabled the suit’s Jane Doe to be sexually assaulted by Sanz. The paperwork claims the assault happened at an SNL party in 2002 with numerous witnesses present. After the assault, the claimant says she suffered lifelong trauma.
“Sanz and his enablers lured Jane into their celebrity world and made her feel like a cool kid for drinking and partying with a bunch of famous grown-ups,” said Susan Crumiller, the woman’s attorney. “Instead, they destroyed her life. Jane has spent the past two decades struggling with the repercussions of what they did to her; now it’s their turn. We look forward to holding NBC, Sanz, and everyone else who enabled this disgusting behavior accountable when the GMVA lookback window opens in March.”
An NBC spokesperson issued the following statement: “Regardless of Jane Doe’s changing narratives, NBC intends to renew its motion to dismiss.”
The legal move was made possible by a recent amendment to NYC’s Gender Motivated Violence Act, which allows victims of gender-based violence to file civil lawsuits against abusers and enablers. The amended GMVA creates a two-year “lookback window” for expired civil claims of gender violence, similar to New York’s Child Victims Act. The woman’s lawyers said her new claims will be revived when the lookback window opens on March 1, 2023.
In 2020, Sanz’s attorney called the allegations “categorically false” in a statement to TMZ: “Before filing this lawsuit anonymously, she demanded $7.5 million in exchange for her silence. We, of course, refused and will vigorously contest these totally meritless claims.”
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