A former executive at the Walt Disney Company’s ABC unit was accused of creating a toxic work environment at the television network’s “Good Morning America” show and sexually assaulting two women who worked for him.
Michael Corn, who served as a senior executive producer for the show until his departure in April, and the network were sued in a New York State court by Kirstyn Crawford, a GMA producer.
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In her suit, Crawford alleges that Corn created a workplace “fraught with discrimination against and marginalization of women, including verbal and physical abuse and unwelcome sexualized comments and harassment” for more than a decade while the network did nothing to stop it. She details an alleged sexual assault by Corn against her and two against a former employee.
Crawford says the network learned of her assault as early as 2017, but didn’t act to protect her or remove Corn, who she said “perpetuated a terrible bullying and drinking culture” at ABC where employees were pressured into binge drinking and mocked if they didn’t participate.
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ABC “looked the other way, elevated Corn through the ranks due to his commercial success as a producer” and failed to check “his influence over subordinates’ careers, sexual harassment, gaslighting, and anger management issues,” Crawford says in her suit.
“I vehemently deny any allegations that I engaged in improper sexual contact with another woman,” Corn said in a statement emailed by his lawyer, Elizabeth Locke. He said Crawford’s claims were “demonstrably false,” and Locke attached what she said were contemporaneous emails proving her client’s innocence.
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“Hours after the supposed incident, Ms. Crawford offered to bring me coffee and breakfast to my hotel room and asked for my hotel room number because she didn’t know it — the very same room where she now claims this incident occurred,” Corn said in the statement. “The same day, she repeatedly offered for me to share a car with her. And the same day she emailed me, after I helped counsel her through a work problem, ‘why are you so great?’ These are not the words and actions of a woman who had been assaulted hours before.”
Milton Williams, a lawyer for Crawford, said the lawsuit was “truthful and accurate.”
ABC News said in a statement that it “disputes the claims made against it and will address this matter in court.”
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“We are committed to upholding a safe and supportive work environment and have a process in place that thoroughly reviews and addresses complaints that are made,” it said.
In May, Corn was named president of news at Nexstar Media Group’s NewsNation network. Nexstar spokesman Gary Weitman said the company had no comment on anything that “may or may not have happened” before Corn joined Nexstar.
The case is Crawford v. American Broadcasting Cos., New York State Supreme Court, New York County.
