The plaintiff suing NBC and Horatio Sanz has spoken out once more, this time in an affidavit naming several Saturday Night Live cast members who allegedly witnessed Sanz sexually assaulting her as a 17-year-old at a 2002 SNL afterparty.
Jane Doe sued Sanz and NBC last summer, alleging that the comedian groomed her from the age of 15 and sexually assaulted her at an SNL afterparty when she was 17. The complaint also quotes messages in which Sanz allegedly wrote that should Doe want to “metoo” him, she’d have “every right.” (Sanz has denied Doe’s allegations through his attorney.)
Doe remains anonymous due to her age at the time of her allegations. On Wednesday, she filed a new affidavit that claims several cast members—including Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, and Seth Meyers—were not only present but within direct eyesight of herself and Sanz while he groped her at an SNL afterparty. Doe alleges that she gained entry into such gatherings from NBC employees as a teenager on at least 12 dates.
The most explosive allegations in Doe’s newly submitted documents stem from a May 2002 SNL afterparty where Sanz allegedly assaulted Doe in full view of his colleagues. It was allegedly the second afterparty of the night, and Doe claims in her affidavit that she and Sanz were seated on a couch in the middle of the room facing the entrance.
“Both at these parties and afterwards, Sanz kissed me, groped my breasts and buttocks and digitally penetrated my genitals,” Doe writes. “He was also rubbing my vagina over [the] top of my clothes.”
Doe’s affidavit states that she and Ana Gasteyer made direct eye contact while Sanz groped her, at which point, “Gasteyer’s jaw dropped, her arms shook and she became visibly startled.”
“Next to Gasteyer, I saw Fey and Dratch looking at us and laughing,” Doe continues. “When I looked at Fey and Dratch, who were excitedly giggling and talking with their hands over their mouths while looking directly at me and Sanz, they were startled and positioned themselves behind other people.”
“When I looked at Fey and Dratch, who were excitedly giggling and talking with their hands over their mouths while looking directly at me and Sanz, they were startled and positioned themselves behind other people.”
Also present, the affidavit claims, were Seth Meyers and Maya Rudolph—who allegedly also stood “directly in front” of Sanz and Doe, “facing us, and Rudolph looked grossed out.”
When Doe expressed her discomfort to Sanz, the affidavit claims, “He dismissed my shock and embarrassment, telling me to keep going with him despite everyone gawking at us.”
“I made repeated comments that I wanted to leave,” she writes. “I was obviously uncomfortable with the situation.”
“I made repeated comments that I wanted to leave. I was obviously uncomfortable with the situation.”
NBC denied liability for Sanz’s “after-hours” behavior in a memorandum submitted this April in support of the company’s motion to dismiss Doe’s complaint. When reached for comment regarding Doe’s newly submitted response, an NBC spokesperson told The Daily Beast, “We believe the plaintiff’s claims against NBC are meritless and have filed a motion to dismiss.”
Sanz’s attorney, Andrew Brettler, issued a denial last year on his client’s behalf in which he described Doe’s allegations as “categorically false.”
“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,” Brettler wrote back then.
When reached for comment by The Daily Beast regarding the new affidavit, Brettler referred back to his original statement. Representatives for Dratch, Fey, Meyers, Gasteyer, and Rudolph did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the legal age of consent in New York is 17.
