Horatio Sanz Allegedly Assaulted an Underage Fan During His SNL Days, New Lawsuit Claims

A new lawsuit claims that comedian and former Saturday Night Live cast member Horatio Sanz sexually assaulted an underage fan multiple times and groomed her into a years-long online sexual relationship.

The unnamed woman behind the suit, filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court, alleges that she first met Sanz when she was the 15-year-old moderator of an SNL fansite, Page Six reports. It was purportedly at a 2000 taping of the long-running sketch comedy show, which she attended at his request. A year later, Sanz allegedly began inviting her to post-show after-parties where he’d give her alcohol, touch her inappropriately, and tell her “to sit on his lap.”

The suit claims that former SNL star and current Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon witnessed such alleged actions on at least one occasion, though he is not named as a defendant; only Sanz and SNL Studios are.

The lawsuit then claims that Sanz assaulted the unnamed accuser at an SNL after-party in 2002: “kissing her, groping her breasts, groping her buttocks, and digitally penetrating her genitals forcibly and without [her] consent.” Another major allegation in the suit is that Sanz is said to have groomed the woman into a sexual online relationship when she was still a teenager, which purportedly included requests for nude photos and graphic descriptions of masturbation.

When reached for comment by Vulture, Sanz’s attorney called the allegations “categorically false.”

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