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The Fox Sports executive who was accused of sexual misconduct in two lawsuits over the last month has reportedly been suspended by the network.
Charlie Dixon, the head of content for FS1 since 2017 who had served as Fox Sports executive VP for nearly a decade, was placed on leave in recent days, The Athletic reported Monday.
Several of the most disturbing accusations made by Noushin Faraji, who worked at Fox Sports as a hairstylist for more than a decade, were leveled against Dixon, who was listed as a defendant in Faraji’s lawsuit. That suit filed Jan. 3 and first reported by FOS preceded a second lawsuit that named Dixon as a defendant, the latter filed by former FS1 host Julie Stewart-Binks.
“We don’t comment on personnel matters,” a Fox Sports spokesperson said in a statement to Front Office Sports on Monday.
Faraji’s sexual battery claim made against Dixon stems from a birthday party held for Joy Taylor at a bar and restaurant in West Hollywood in January 2017. According to the lawsuit, Dixon “placed his arm on Ms. Faraji’s lower back” and asked her if she wanted a tequila shot. Faraji said she felt uncomfortable by the “unsolicited touching” and politely declined the drink offer before Dixon “then moved his hand lower and started rubbing her body and grabbing her buttocks.”
Fox, Fox Sports, FS1, FS2, former FS1 host Skip Bayless, and FS1 host Joy Taylor are also defendants in the first lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and seeks unspecified monetary damages and a jury trial.
Stewart-Binks, who worked at FS1 from 2013 to 2017, sued Fox Sports and Dixon in the same venue on Friday. And similar to Faraji’s suit, Stewart-Binks alleged Dixon committed sexual battery. Both women are represented by the same attorneys, Rana Ayazi and Devin Abney.
In her lawsuit, Stewart-Binks alleged Dixon invited her to his hotel room in Marina del Rey, Calif., in January 2016 where, with “her arms forcefully held down and his body pressed against hers,” Dixon “tried to force his tongue into her mouth.” Stewart-Binks said she detailed her encounter with Dixon to Fox Sports human resources in 2017.
“When Ms. Stewart-Binks reported Dixon’s actions to human resources as part of an investigation, Fox egregiously made the deliberate decision to protect Dixon and allow a sexual predator to remain an executive at Fox for nearly a decade,” the lawsuit says.
Fox Sports said on Friday that Stewart-Binks’s allegations raised in 2017 were investigated by a third-party firm and the network “addressed the matter based on their findings.”
Multiple sources told FOS that FS1 and FS2—launched as a rival to ESPN in August 2013—was siloed within the Fox Sports landscape and Dixon was given a wide berth to manage the two networks for the last seven-plus years. Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks, who was not listed among the defendants in either lawsuit, wasn’t as deeply involved in FS1 as he was at other Fox Sports properties, two sources said.
