On Thursday, attorneys Arthur Aidala and Mark Eiglarsh were guests on Megyn Kelly’s show on SXM, where the lawyers discussed the ramifications and possible validity of the sexual assault accusations against CNN’s Don Lemon.
Criminal defense attorney Eiglarsh and trial attorney Aidala dived deeper into Lemon’s upcoming assault trial. Lemon has made headlines for taking aim at unvaccinated Americans, calling the pool “stupid” that should be “left behind.” Lemon also said the unvaccinated don’t deserve to participate in society.
Lemon also argued that the case of Gabby Petito and the subsequent national attention the case has garnered are evidence of widespread racism in the United States. According to critics, Lemon gleefully reported on the sexual midsconduct scandal involving now ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY).
Kelly described Lemon’s sanctimous on-air personality, saying that he is “trying to tell us what bad people we are, night after night.” Kelly went on to state that she considers Lemon to have been “credibly accused of sexual assault.”
She said that the witness who brought the case against Lemon makes the lawsuit “worthy of serious thought and consideration.”
The host detailed the alleged incident on July 15, 2018, which occurred at a pub in Sag Harbor, in the Hamptons. The accuser, 38-year-old bartender Dustin Hice, went to Murf’s Backstreet Tavern where he spotted Lemon and offered to buy the CNN anchor a drink. Hice asked for two “lemon drops,” vodka-based cocktails.
Lemon declined the offer at first, Kelly said. He told Lemon that he was heterosexual and not trying to hit on him, which the CNN newsman took offense to it and interpreted the move as flirting, Hice claimed.
Hice alleged that Lemon approached him, put his hands down his own board shorts, rubbed himself aggressively, “his penis and whatever else was down there.”
Lemon then “shoved his index and middle fingers in [the] Plaintiff’s mustache and under [the] Plaintiff’s nose,” according to Hice’s suit.
Hice further alleged that Lemon asked after the nonconsensual maneuer if he liked “p***y or d**k?” And he kept repeating, “P or D? P or D?” Hice claimed Lemon said it three or four times. “Whoa man, what the hell?” Hice said he reacted.
“What do you think is going on here?” Kelly asked the two guests, both of whom are experts in civil litigation. Eiglarsh and Aidala both offered slightly different takes on the incident, but agreeing that there’s a strong possibility the allegations are true and that a case against Lemon would prosper in court.
Aidala went on to point out that it could be a potential “money-grab” scenario given the alleged six-figure talks about a financial settlement, although the deal never appeared to materialize. The attorney suggested there might be a “ring of truth that something along those lines had to have happened.”
A source close to Lemon said Hice’s camp contacted the CNN host’s lawyers and demanded $1.5 million in exchange for not filing the suit, the New York Post reported. Lemon refused because he did nothing wrong, the source said.
