Report: Chris Cuomo Fired After CNN Learned Of Alleged Sex Attack

Chris Cuomo during SiriusXM broadcast

Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo attempted to divert a sexual assault accusation by offering favorable coverage of the accuser’s employer, The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing a letter sent to the news network shortly before he was fired.

Attorney Debra Katz, representing a woman who had worked with Cuomo years earlier at ABC News, described the situation as an “abuse of power at CNN to attempt to silence my client” amid the #MeToo movement.

The accuser, who has not been publicly named, “suspected he was concerned about her coming forward publicly with her allegations and wanted to use the proposed segment as an opportunity to ‘test the waters’ and discourage her from going on the record about his sexual misconduct,” Katz wrote to CNN, according to the Times.

The woman worked at a public relations firm when Cuomo offered to do a segment on the company, according to the Times.

The NY Post reports Cuomo, 51, had invited the “young” worker to his office for lunch under the pretext of giving her advice on obtaining full-time employment at the network in 2011, according to the report. When the woman arrived, there was no food, and the anchor badgered her for sex, the letter sent to CNN lawyers on Dec. 1 reportedly said.

When she declined his advance, he reportedly attacked her, the letter alleged.

The woman was “deeply traumatized,” and would remain anonymous so as not to become “a pawn in an internecine war between [Jeff] Zucker, Chris Cuomo and CNN,” Katz reportedly wrote in the letter to CNN, which led to the swift dismissal of the anchor.

Cuomo was fired Dec. 4 amid an investigation into his involvement into advising his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. He had been suspended a week earlier and the network conducted an investigation.