According to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, Batali is being charged with indecent assault and battery about alleged groping at a Boston restaurant in 2017.
He has denied the charges and entered a not guilty plea.
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Batali agreed to a bench trial rather than a jury trial, which the judge accepted. He was charged in 2019 and is currently facing a civil suit in connection with the same incident.
In 2017, four women claimed Batali “touched them inappropriately in a pattern of behaviour that appears to span at least two decades,” according to the restaurant news website Eater.
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Following the allegations, Batali withdrew from public view, and his restaurant group cut ties with him in 2018. The New York Police Department investigated allegations of sexual misconduct against Batali, but both investigations were closed in 2019 without charges being filed.
Anthony Fuller, Batali’s lawyer, attempted to discredit Natali Teneone of the victims by claiming that the assault never occurred. He claims the accuser has a financial incentive to lie because she is suing Batali for more than $50,000 in damages in a separate civil case in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston.
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