SNL’s Horatio Sanz allegedly ‘digitally penetrated’ underage girl in front of cast members

Former SNL star Horatio Sanz has been named in a lawsuit alleging that he sexually assaulted and groomed an underage superfan in a years-long public and private sexual relationship that other cast members largely ignored.

In 2002, Sanz allegedly took the teen on a limo ride and then “digitally penetrated her genitals” in public at a Saturday Night Live cast party, according to the suit.

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The alleged victim is an unnamed woman from Pennsylvania. She ran an SNL fan site online and first met Sanz in person when she was 15. At age 17, Sanz invited her to the 2002 cast party where the lawsuit states that he assaulted her in the presence of other cast members.

Sanz persisted in “kissing her, groping her breasts, groping her buttocks, and digitally penetrating her genitals forcibly and without [her] consent,” reads the lawsuit.

“Are you f—ing serious?” a castmate allegedly responded to Sanz’s actions but did nothing to stop him.

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Before that, the teen had been a guest at several SNL events in 2000-2001 and had interacted with Sanz in-person multiple times, the first being in 2000 when the then-31-year-old invited her to a taping of SNL.

Sanz, through instant messaging, began to ask her for explicit photos of herself and “to perform sexual acts, including masturbation, which he asked her to describe to him.”

The lawsuit describes the abusive and disparaging terms Sanz used when addressing the teen, including “slut,” “slutty” and “bitch.” It also details how he “steered conversations to discuss sex, sexual experiences, sexual activities, sexual fantasies, masturbation.” 

As their cyber interactions intensified, they also occasionally met in person. At an event in 2001, the girl “sat with Jimmy Fallon and others in a VIP area, ordered and consumed a Budweiser beer in the presence of NBC/SNL employees,” the suit continues, although Fallon is not named as a defendant in the suit.

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After the 2002 party when Sanz assaulted her both privately and publicly, the defendant allegedly began suffering from severe depression and turned to drugs. She was even hospitalized at one point.

Sanz reportedly offered her an apology years later when they ran into one another at a 2019 event, saying he “felt terrible,” and then conditioning his behavior, saying that “I had a real issue with sex. I was stunted. I didn’t know how it worked. I spent all my 20’s trying to be funny. So I wasn’t normal with girls.”

The defendant seeks unspecified damages for the “psychological and emotional harm” she suffered as a “victim of child sexual abuse.” 

Sanz denies the allegations, saying via his rep that they are “categorically false.”

“However often she repeats her ludicrous allegations or tries to rope in other high-profile names to generate media attention, they will always be false,” Sanz’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, told the Independent Chronicle. “Before filing this lawsuit anonymously, she demanded $7.5 million in exchange for her silence. We, of course, refused and will vigorously contest these totally meritless claims.”

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NBC Universal did not immediately respond to the Independent Chronicles request for comment.

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