Former Saturday Night Live star Horatio Sanz has been accused of grooming and sexually assaulting a teen girl.
On Thursday, a woman identified as Jane Doe filed a lawsuit against the comedian, claiming her first encounter with Horatio was when she was 15. At the time, she was running a fan page for SNL. After the two allegedly met, the woman says Horatio started giving her alcohol at an afterparty for SNL and then began groping and digitally penetrating her, Yahoo! News reports.
Sanz’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, called the accusations “categorically false” and “ludicrous.” Brettler says the woman anonymously demanded money from the comedian.
“Before filing this lawsuit anonymously, she demanded $7.5m in exchange for her silence,” he told TMZ in a statement. “We, of course, refused and will vigorously contest these totally meritless claims.” He continued: “However often she repeats her ludicrous allegations or tries to rope in other high-profile names to generate media attention, they will always be false.”
Horatio’s started his career with SNL back in 1998, and it ended in 2006. NBCUniversal and SNL Studios were also named as defendants in the suit, Yahoo! News reports.
