Sexual Harassment Suit Against Don Lemon Is Dropped

A man who sued CNN anchor Don Lemon, charging that the newsman had sexually assaulted him at Murf’s Backstreet Tavern in Sag Harbor nearly four years ago, has dropped his suit.

In a public statement, Dustin Hice, who filed a federal suit in 2019, said “after a lot of inner reflection and a deep dive into my memory, I have come to realize that my recollection of the events that occurred on the night in question when I first met CNN newsman Don Lemon were not what I thought they were when I filed this lawsuit. As a result, I am dropping the case.”

In court papers filed on May 2 in U.S. District Court, Eastern District, in Central Islip, Hice asked that the suit be dropped. Lemon’s legal team agreed.

Hice’s suit has been on increasingly shaky ground after a federal magistrate earlier this year ordered him to pay Lemon $77,119 in legal fees. Magistrate Judge Steven J. Locke ruled that Hice had destroyed or failed to provide Lemon’s legal team with evidence — specifically, text messages, photos and videos he had on his phone — during the discovery phase of the trial.

The case began taking on water even earlier when George Gounelas, who was at the bar the night in question and who had originally backed Hice’s account of events, recanted his testimony. Another of Hice’s potential witnesses, Isabel Peters, contradicted his claims and agreed to testify for Lemon.

Hice had initially claimed that he and his friends bumped into Lemon at Murf’s and he had offered to buy Lemon a “lemon drop” cocktail, which he refused. Later in the evening, Hice claimed that Lemon approached him, placed his hand in his own pants and rubbed it against his genitalia before sticking his fingers in Hice’s face.

Hice said in his suit that he had fled the bar suffering emotional distress, but his friends said they actually followed Lemon to another establishment in the village when he left Murf’s.

In a statement, Lemon’s lead attorney, Caroline Polosi, called Hice’s suit “a crass money grab,” adding that Lemon had not paid him any money to drop the suit.

“Thankfully, Mr. Hice was finally able to access his memory and recollect the correct version of events on the night when he approached Don Lemon,” she said.