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SDNY COURTHOUSE, Oct 20 – Jennifer Eckhart and Cathy Areu sued Fox News, Ed Henry, Sean Hannity and others.

 On October 7 U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Ronnie Abrams held a proceeding. Inner City Press covered it. 

 The complaint has a label, "Trigger Warning: This Document contains highly graphic information of a sexual nature, including sexual assault."

Eckhart states that Ed Henry "asked her to be his 'sex slave'... On July 1, 2020, Fox News disclosed to the public that it had terminated Mr. Henry." 

 Now on October 19, Ed Henry has fired back, including "7. Attached hereto as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of email correspondence between Ed Henry and Jennifer Eckhart, dated October 21, 2015. 8. Attached hereto as Exhibit E is a true and correct copy of a message, dated January 2, 2016, from Jennifer Eckhart to Ed Henry sending him a “Playlist” of songs via Dropbox. Included in this “Playlist” are songs like “Coffee (Fucking)” (which features the lyrics “Fucking in the morning . . . I’ve never felt comfortable like this . . . Sweet dreams turn into fucking in the morning”) and “Cockiness (Love It When You Eat It)” (which features the lyrics “I want you to be my sex slave . . . Set my whole body on fire”). 9. Attached hereto as Exhibit F is a true and correct copy of email correspondence Jennifer Eckhart sent to Ed Henry, dated January 13, 2016, with a link to a picture of a man’s tattoo, as well as a screenshot from that webpage. 10. Attached hereto as Exhibits G-U are true and correct copies of photographs Jennifer Eckhart sent Ed Henry in 2017. In exhibits I, J, M, and Q, Plaintiff’s intimate parts have been purposely obscured. Dated: New York, New York October 19, 2020."

   The exhibits was in PACER, and public - then on the morning of October 20, they were not available. Jennifer Eckhard's lawyer wrote in:

"we made an emergency application to the ECF Help Desk to temporarily seal these exhibits pending a formal application to Your Honor, which was granted early this morning. Case 1:20-cv-05593-RA Document 91 Filed 10/20/20 Page 1 of 2 The Honorable Ronnie Abrams October 20, 2020 Page 2 While we expect that Defendant Henry will attempt to draw a false equivalency between the text messages that Plaintiff included in her Amended Complaint in an effort to justify his behavior, there is obviously no comparison between words sent by a party and disseminating nude images of someone to the general public. Indeed, in New York, public dissemination of nude images in this manner is actually unlawful. See N.Y. Penal Law § 245.15. Notably, we are not seeking to redact or seal any of the non-image related exhibits that Defendant Henry filed with his motion to dismiss (notwithstanding the fact that this material is also irrelevant at the motion to dismiss stage). These pictures also represent the type of confidential and sensitive information that are normally sealed in the course of litigations. In re N.Y. Times Co., 828 F.2d 110, 116 (2d Cir. 1987). Courts have identified particular examples of “higher values.” See e.g., Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15 Civ. 7433 (RWS), 2017 WL 1787934, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. May 2, 2017) (finding privacy interests warranted closure regarding discovery materials that concerned the sexual assault of a minor.)....

We have conferred with counsel for Defendant Henry, and they, incredibly, do not consent to the sealing of these exhibits. Apparently, Mr. Henry and/or his attorney are hoping that these images will soon again be available on the public docket and continue to haunt and cause harm to Ms. Eckhart."

 We'll have more on this, too. For now we note that the Guiffre v. [Ghislaine] Maxwell case cited above was cited elsewhere in the SDNY on October 20, in support of sealing or not docketing mere words, letters by Suspicious Activities Report leaker / whistleblower Natalie Edwards, which Inner City Press applied to unseal, October 20 order here.

  Ms. Areu says Sean Hannity threw a $100 bill on the set desk and "began calling out to men in the room and demanding that someone take Ms. Areu out on a date for drinks at Del Friscos."   

 At issue on October 7 was whether the separate the two women's cases. This will be done.

Update: After Inner City Press published the above about the October 7 proceeding, we received the following which we publish in full:

Statement from FOX News on the Cathy Areu amended complaint  “As we have maintained, the accusations against Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Howard Kurtz are utterly devoid of merit. Ms. Areu’s allegation that women are not treated equally at FOX News is also provably false and yet another malicious attempt to smear the network with baseless claims. In fact, FOX News has provided more leadership opportunities for women than any other cable news network, including featuring more solo women anchors and hosts on-air and retaining a senior staff comprised of more than 50% female executives.”     

Statement from FOX News in response to Wigdor lawsuit filing:     “Based on the findings of a comprehensive independent investigation conducted by an outside law firm, including interviews with numerous eyewitnesses, we have determined that all of Cathy Areu’s claims against FOX News, including its management as well as its hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity & Howard Kurtz and its contributor Gianno Caldwell, are false, patently frivolous and utterly devoid of any merit. We take all claims of harassment, misconduct and retaliation seriously, promptly investigating them and taking immediate action as needed — in this case, the appropriate action based on our investigation is to defend vigorously against these baseless allegations. Ms. Areu and Jennifer Eckhart can pursue their claims against Ed Henry directly with him, as FOX News already took swift action as soon as it learned of Ms. Eckhart’s claims on June 25 and Mr. Henry is no longer employed by the network.”

The lead case is Eckhart et al v. Fox News Network, LLC et al., 20-cv-5593 (Abrams) 

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