Howard Stern, in legal response, calls lawsuit 'attempted shakedown'

The lawsuit filed against Howard Stern and his wife, Beth Ostrosky Stern, by a former personal assistant is "a thinly veiled attempted shakedown," the couple argue in a memorandum to dismiss the court action.

Leslie Kuhn, the ex-assistant and former office manager of SiriusXM Radio's "Howard Stern Show," filed the suit April 5 against the couple and a pair of production companies — One Twelve Inc. and Howard Stern Production Co.

In her suit, Kuhn alleges she was fired as a "result of, among other things, a hostile work environment and enablement of that hostile work environment." The lawsuit also states that a pair of confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements from May 10, 2022, and May 23, 2025, were fraudulent and that she did not sign the documents.

Kuhn "hatched a plan to extract a staggering ‘hush-money’ payment" from Stern, the Roosevelt-raised longtime radio personality, Ostrosky Stern and his related companies, the Stern parties' court memorandum seeking dismissal states.

John Leonard, Kuhn’s Hampton Bays-based attorney, said his client will "vigorously oppose" Wednesday’s court filing in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, which he does not consider "a threat to Ms. Kuhn’s claims, factually or legally."

Pryor Cashman, the Manhattan-based law firm representing the Stern parties, did not immediately return telephone messages seeking comment Thursday.

Kuhn signed the 2022 confidentiality agreement "not once, but twice," first electronically in May and then with "a wet ink signature" that September, states Wednesday’s motion to dismiss.

Leonard said the submission of the September 2022 agreement is "only going to extend litigation."

"We were first given the May 2022 agreement, then in the eleventh hour, weeks later, we were given that May 2025 agreement," Leonard told Newsday in a telephone interview. "Now, in the eleventh hour prior to a preliminary conference, we’re given a September 2022 agreement."

Kuhn's lawsuit asked the court to void the agreements "because they not only silence Kuhn from speaking candidly about her employment and the termination of her employment, but they also permit the defendants to speak freely about Kuhn with impunity," Newsday previously reported.

The lawsuit, the Sterns argued Wednesday, "is based on a complete fabrication."

"It was Kuhn and her counsel — not the Stern Parties — who manufactured her supposed ‘need’ to be liberated from" the agreements "so that they could ‘address’ ‘accusations’ that they alone elected to make public," the request to dismiss the lawsuit states. Instead of "easily" explaining her departure "during future job interviews," the memorandum states, Kuhn "chose to make her termination public and now asks the Court to help her remedy that self-inflicted harm."

The memorandum also included an April 2 email to Kuhn’s attorney from an attorney representing the Stern parties that said "our clients have no intention of discussing your client, the terms of her employment or termination, and will simply give a neutral reference if asked."