Fox News might just be going through more scandals than our actual government right now.
Former anchor Andrea Tantaros already sued the network for a shocking $50 million last year, naming Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes as the co-conspirators of “a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny.”
The former The Five host added a second lawsuit to the mix on Monday, and she’s now accusing top Fox News executives of creating a “criminal scheme” to continue harassing her online — and even using illegal electronic surveillance on her!
Related: O’Reilly Is “Sad” He’s Not On TV Anymore!
According to the complaint filed in a Manhattan federal court, Tantaros said former CEO Ailes and current co-president Bill Shine monitored her emails and listened to her phone calls, then conveyed “that they were doing so through cruel social media posts.”
Tantaros claims that after she first complained about Ailes in 2015, the cable news network created “sockpuppet” Twitter accounts, AKA fake social media accounts to manipulate online conversations, to “cryptically let her know that she was under surveillance.”
Examples of messages “designed” to make her paranoid include a tweet in June 2016 for an ad for the DVD of the 1957 film The Black Scorpion after a friend was hospitalized from a scorpion bite. The same month, she received a tweet about her brother Daniel’s 2013 death the day after she and her mother had spoken about it over the phone.
So creepy! But that’s not all…
Related: Don’t Accuse Sean Hannity Of Sexual Harassment
The 38-year-old also claims that a Fox News operative had installed key-logging “and other surveillance software” on her personal computer. This surveillance continued after Tantaros left the network last year, and even after Ailes was ousted amid his sexual harassment scandal last summer.
Forensic examination did find that anomalies on Tantaros’ laptop “are not malware or known viruses that could have been found or transmitted through ‘general surfing’ of the Internet.”
Of course, the network is denying all of Tantaros’ claims — just like they did with her last lawsuit.
Fox released a statement saying executives “flatly deny” the allegations, calling them a “flimsy pretext to keep Ms. Tantaros and her sexual harassment claims in the public eye after the State Supreme Court directed her to bring them in arbitration.”
Yikes.
What do U think of these shocking (but not actually) new claims?
[Image via Fox News.]
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