Chris Cuomo Demands at Least $125 Million in Arbitration With CNN

“As a result of [CNN parent] Turner’s indefensible choice to unceremoniously fire him, Cuomo has been damaged in countless ways,” the arbitration demand said. “Cuomo has had his journalistic integrity unjustifiably smeared, making it difficult if not impossible for Cuomo to find similar work in the future and damaging him in amounts exceeding $125 million.”

Deadline earlier reported on Mr. Cuomo’s arbitration demand.

In the arbitration demand, Mr. Cuomo said CNN executives, including former network President Jeff Zucker and former CNN Chief Marketing Officer Allison Gollust, were aware of his efforts to aid his brother, which the complaint said didn’t violate the company’s standards and practices.

“It should by now be obvious that Chris Cuomo did not lie to CNN about helping his brother,” Chris Cuomo’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement.

The 32-page arbitration demand, signed by Mr. Freedman, also claims that Mr. Zucker and Ms. Gollust advised then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo by providing him with talking points to respond to statements made by then-President Donald Trump. It also says that Mr. Zucker and Ms. Gollust demanded priority Covid-19 testing from Gov. Cuomo’s office in mid-March 2020—“demands that the administration felt it had no choice but to fulfill given Zucker and Gollust’s power over [Chris] Cuomo’s career.”

A spokesman for Andrew Cuomo declined to comment. Andrew Cuomo, who has denied touching anyone inappropriately, resigned as New York governor in August after an investigation by the office of state Attorney General Letitia James found he had sexually harassed multiple women.

WarnerMedia, the AT&T Inc. unit that oversees CNN, declined to comment. A spokesman for Mr. Zucker and Ms. Gollust declined to comment. Mr. Zucker said during a December CNN employee town hall meeting after Chris Cuomo was fired that he hadn’t been aware of the full extent of the former anchor’s efforts to aid his brother.

Mr. Zucker resigned last month, citing his failure to disclose a consensual romantic relationship with Ms. Gollust. Ms. Gollust resigned later in the month. On the day of Ms. Gollust’s resignation, WarnerMedia Chief Executive Jason Kilar told employees that an investigation had determined Ms. Gollust, Mr. Zucker and Chris Cuomo had violated company policies, including CNN’s news standards and practices; he didn’t offer details as to how. A spokesman for Chris Cuomo said in response to Mr. Kilar’s memo that Mr. Zucker’s exit was “never about an undisclosed relationship,” while Ms. Gollust said at the time that the Kilar memo amounted to an “attempt to retaliate against me.”

Chris Cuomo’s arbitration demand said Turner, the CNN parent, never told him which part of his contract it determined justified his termination.

The complaint said Mr. Cuomo’s contract also includes language that requires CNN to make an effort to instruct employees not to make any intentionally disparaging comments about the former anchor in his work for the network. The complaint said several prominent CNN employees, including anchors, have disparaged him.

It also said that the network hadn’t properly investigated a complaint of sexual misconduct made against Chris Cuomo by a former colleague of his at another network, which—according to the complaint—Mr. Zucker told Chris Cuomo had weighed on his decision to fire the former anchor. In the complaint, Chris Cuomo said the sexual-misconduct allegations were “false and unfounded.”

Write to Benjamin Mullin at [email protected]