Tucker Carlson’s Producer and ‘Right Hand Man’ Accused of Sexually Assaulting Fox News Co-Worker in New Lawsuit
A former Fox News employee filed a lawsuit Monday alleging that Tucker Carlson’s executive producer and “right-hand man” sexually harassed and assaulted him while they were both employed by the network in 2008.
The complaint was filed Monday in a federal court in New York by Andrew Delancey against Justin Wells, Fox News, and the network’s parent company, Fox Corporation, and alleges that Wells sexually assaulted Delancey while the former was employed as a producer on Greta Van Susteren’s show. It further alleges that Wells, despite the allegations, continued to be promoted by Fox News. He would eventually help to launch Carlson’s weeknight show and reach the rank of senior executive producer and vice president.
When Carlson was ousted from Fox in April, Wells’ employment was terminated as well. He now works as a producer on Carlson’s streaming show which airs on X, formerly Twitter.
According to the complaint, the trouble started in 2007, when Delancey was working with a Fox affiliate in Tampa, Florida, and Wells reached out to him through a Facebook group for Fox News employees, encouraging him to apply for positions within the company in New York City. Delancey did end up getting hired as a producer and moved to NYC.
The complaint contains allegations about Wells “showering Mr. Delancey with gifts,” including personally monogrammed items that other Fox employees did not receive, and how Wells “was not reserved about reminding Mr. Delancey that he held higher status at the Network and could, in turn, affect Mr. Delancey’s career trajectory.”
The sexual assault occurred about one month after Delancey moved to NYC, according to the complaint, with Wells allegedly inviting Delancey to meet up at his apartment for a “pre-game” cocktail before heading to a nearby bar, and leading Delancey to believe that other Fox employees would be present.
Instead, the complaint alleges, the two men were alone in Wells’ apartment, and Wells assaulted him multiple times:
- Before Mr. Delancey could finish half of his drink, out of nowhere, Wells aggressively pushed Mr. Delancey onto his bed where he violently forced his tongue into Mr. Delancey’s mouth. At the time, Wells had a more muscular build than Mr. Delancey, and easily overpowered him.
- Defendant Wells quickly began unbuttoning and trying to rip off Mr. Delancey’s jeans as the sexual assault progressed. Simultaneously, Wells aggressively grabbed Mr. Delancey’s genitals causing him severe pain.
- Mr. Delancey was in complete shock. He yelled out, “no!” and mustered up the strength to physically slow down Defendant Wells’s physical attack.
- Hoping to reason with Wells, Mr. Delancey reminded Wells that Wells had a boyfriend and said that they needed to continue with the (supposed) plan to join others at the nearby Barracuda Lounge. Wells reluctantly agreed.
- Wells insisted that, before they left, Mr. Delancey allow Wells to show him the view from Wells’s apartment rooftop. Mr. Delancey saw this as an opportunity to get out of Wells’s apartment and quickly led the way out the door. Wells followed closely behind.
- In the stairwell, Wells again assaulted Mr. Delancey.
- As Mr. Delancey was walking up the stairs to the rooftop deck, Wells aggressively grabbed Mr. Delancey from behind, catching Mr. Delancey off guard. Wells reached around Mr. Delancey and stuck his hands down the front of Mr. Delancey’s pants while again trying to unbutton Mr. Delancey’s jeans.
- Mr. Delancey quickly pulled away and pleaded with Wells to stop.
- Wells was clearly annoyed by Mr. Delancey’s continued refusal to submit to Wells’s aggressive sexual assaults. Wells told Mr. Delancey that he no longer wanted to accompany him to the Barracuda Lounge. Relieved that he could get away from Wells, Mr. Delancey hurriedly left.
The complaint lambasts Fox News as “a workplace where sexual harassment notoriously runs rampant” – citing as examples allegations against the network’s former CEO and chairman Roger Ailes, who was running the network at the time of the alleged assault, and Fox’s “most notable former personalities such as, Tucker Carlson, Bill O’Reilly, and Ed Henry” – and details Delancey’s efforts to confide in multiple fellow Fox News employees, but never being able to get any protection from Wells.
One female colleague allegedly told Delancey that Wells had sexually harassed her, but the network had not taken any corrective action. Delancey also alleges that his supervisor not only instructed him to not complain to human resources about Wells’ assault, but was committing various types of misconduct himself, including encouraging coworkers to drink alcohol and make “inappropriate remarks” about other Fox employees, and to conceal such discussions from upper management.
Wells retaliated against Delancey for rejecting his advances, the complaint alleges, including making verbal threats, describing how Delancey believed “his career progression at Fox to be obviously halted, a departure from the promised career advancements and warm welcome that he had received when he arrived at Fox,” so he left and returned to his previous job in Tampa.
Wells’ attorney, Harmeet Dhillon, told Mediaite in a statement her client denies the claims made by Delancey: “This meritless legal action was filed 15 years after the alleged incident and mere days before the extended statute of limitations would have run. Mr. Wells denies the allegations unequivocally, and will contest them vigorously. This is yet another attempt by a law firm with a history of suing Fox and its former employees to cash in on frivolous allegations.”
Delancey is bringing his lawsuit under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that created a new one-year statute of limitation for victims of sexual assault to come forward and make claims. He is represented by Filippatos PLLC, a leading employment law firm in New York that previously represented Abby Grossberg, a former Fox News producer who alleged gender discrimination and antisemitism at Fox. Grossberg settled with the network for $12 million in June.
In the complaint, Delancey alleges how the “Me Too” movement inspired him to come forward with his experience that he was a sexual assault victim, and includes a screenshot of a Facebook post he wrote describing how an unnamed “[p]erson of great power in the media landscape of NYC” had initially flattered but then attacked him, but then “got pissed when I didn’t just lay there and take it,” and “kicked me out into the cold.”
Delancey alleges that the next evening at nearly 4 a.m. Wells contacted him out of the blue about his Facebook post:
On October 23, 2017, at 3:50 AM, after having no contact for several years, Wells, perhaps with a guilty conscience, privately messaged Mr. Delancey. Wells inquired, “Hey. Saw your post. I’m sorry that happened to you. Who was it?” Plaintiff was too shocked to respond.
Mediaite reached out to Tucker Carlson regarding the allegations and received the following response:
As a general matter, if you believe you’ve been the victim of a sex crime, you have a moral obligation to alert police, so it doesn’t happen to someone else. If a man waits 15 years to cash in with a civil suit, no one should take him seriously. I certainly don’t.
Delancey’s lawyers Parisis Filippatos and Alfredo Pelicci fired back at Carlson in their own statement:
Mr. Delancey stands by each and every allegation in his complaint, which took tremendous courage to file. Mr. Carlson’s statements are a classic example of the tactics that people with power and influence use to insulate themselves from accountability and silence victims. It’s also no surprise that Mr. Carlson is jumping to the defense of his right-hand man. Mr. Carlson’s credibility on this — and any other topic for that matter — now hovers at zero especially since revelations surrounding the Dominion settlement and his termination by Fox News have established a public record of Mr. Carlson’s propensity to mislead his audience.
Fox News did not respond to a request for comment.
Disclosure: Diana Falzone was an on-camera reporter for Fox News from 2012 to 2018. In May 2017, she filed a gender discrimination and disability lawsuit against the network and settled, and left the company in March 2018.
Andrew Delancey v. Justin Wells and Fox – Filed Complaint by Sarah Rumpf on Scribd
