Scott McDermott via AP. A former Fox Sports reporter and anchor filed a lawsuit Friday against the network and top executive Charlie Dixon, saying he sexually assaulted her after coaxing her up to his hotel room to discuss Super Bowl plans in and was later pushed out of her job for fighting back. Julie Stewart-Binks said in her complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, that she was inspired to speak up after a former hairstylist for Fox Sports filed a lawsuit on Jan. Andrew Fegyveresi, a spokesperson for Fox, said in an email that the claims had been addressed.
Fegyveresi did not respond to a request to elaborate on what the investigation found or how their findings were addressed. The Associated Press does not generally identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted or subjected to abuse unless they have given permission to identify them. Stewart-Binks' lawyers said she gave the AP permission to use her name.
Stewart-Binks covered soccer and hockey in Canada and moved to Los Angeles in to join the team at Fox Sports 1, the lawsuit said. In the fall of , she was the main sideline reporter for the Anaheim Ducks. Jamie Horowitz became president of Fox Sports in May and hired Dixon two months later to be the executive vice president of content, the lawsuit said. The night before her meeting with the show's team, she received a text from Dixon asking her to meet him at his hotel, the lawsuit said.
As Stewart-Binks scrambled to come up with a response that would show her talent, Dixon invited her to his hotel room to see the view from his balcony, the suit said. She agreed, reluctantly. But once on the balcony, Dixon pushed her against the wall, pinned down her arms, pressed his body against hers and tried to force his tongue into her mouth, the lawsuit said. Stewart-Binks pushed him away and ran from the room, the suit said.
She didn't say anything about it at the team's Super Bowl meeting the following day and she was confirmed to appear on the Whitlock show.
