Fox Sports VP Placed on Leave After Former Anchor Accuses Him of Sexual Assault: Report
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Fox Sports executive vice president Charlie Dixon was placed on administrative leave days after a former anchor filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault.
Dixon was first listed as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by a former hairstylist in early January. In the lawsuit, the hairstylist — identified as Noushin Faraji — accused Dixon of groping her at the birthday party of Fox Sports host Joy Taylor in 2017. In response, Taylor allegedly told Faraji to get over it.
Faraji also claimed in the lawsuit that Taylor had been having an affair with Dixon in order to land a spot on the then-upcoming show Undisputed.
Last Friday, Dixon appeared in yet another lawsuit regarding his alleged workplace conduct. Julie Stewart-Binks, a former anchor and reporter, accused Dixon of assaulting her in 2016. According to the lawsuit — which was obtained and reported on by The Athletic — Stewart-Binks met with Dixon in 2016 to discuss her assignment for the Super Bowl that year. During that meeting, Dixon allegedly “pinned her arms and forcibly kissed” her. When Stewart-Binks reported the incident to HR, she claimed Fox “egregiously made the deliberate decision to protect Dixon and allow a sexual predator to remain an executive at Fox for nearly a decade.”
On Monday, The Athletic reported that Dixon had been placed on leave in the wake of the latest lawsuit. Dixon has not responded to The Athletic’s request for comment.
This action appeared to be Fox Sports’ first public acknowledgment of the lawsuits against the network. Prior to Dixon’s leave, none of the parties mentioned in the lawsuit had said anything on-air or off it. The silence had become so outrageous to former NFL star Cam Newton that he recently called it out on ESPN.
