Chris Cuomo seeks $125 million from CNN.
The former cable news anchor Chris Cuomo is seeking $125 million from CNN for what his lawyers claim was wrongful termination when the cable news network fired him in December.
In a legal filing on Wednesday with JAMS, an arbitration organization, Mr. Cuomo’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said he was seeking the $15 million that Mr. Cuomo was owed under his contract as well as “future wages lost as a result of CNN’s efforts to destroy his reputation.”
Mr. Cuomo was fired days after the New York attorney general released a trove of emails and text messages that indicated he had been intimately involved with providing strategic advice to his brother, Andrew M. Cuomo, who was confronting a mounting sexual harassment scandal while serving as governor of New York.
Mr. Cuomo was fired by Jeff Zucker, CNN’s president at the time. Mr. Cuomo has maintained that Mr. Zucker was aware of his dealings with his brother, an accusation that Mr. Zucker has denied.
An internal investigation into Mr. Cuomo commissioned by WarnerMedia, CNN’s parent company, soon imperiled Mr. Zucker as well. Mr. Zucker resigned under pressure in early February after the investigation revealed that he had failed to disclose a romantic relationship with the network’s head of marketing and communications, Allison Gollust. WarnerMedia would later say that “the investigation found violations of company policies, including CNN’s news standards and practices, by Jeff Zucker, Allison Gollust and Chris Cuomo.” Mr. Zucker and Ms. Gollust have denied that.
Mr. Freedman, Mr. Cuomo’s lawyer, said on Wednesday that it “should by now be obvious that Chris Cuomo did not lie to CNN about helping his brother.”
“In fact, as the limited information released from WarnerMedia’s investigation makes clear, CNN’s highest-level executives not only knew about Chris’s involvement in helping his brother but also actively assisted the governor, both through Chris and directly themselves,” Mr. Freedman continued.
A CNN spokesman declined to comment. Deadline reported Mr. Cuomo’s legal filing earlier on Wednesday.
