A lawsuit filed Monday against Fox News charges terminated anchor Ed Henry had raped and sexually assaulted a former Fox News employee, and that other on-air personalities, including Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, had sexually harassed a Fox News correspondent.

Fox News said in a statement it had taken appropriate action.

Fox announced July 1 it had terminated Mr. Henry based on the findings of an internal investigation, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York in Jennifer Eckhart and Cathy Areu v. Fox News Network, LLC, Ed Henry, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Howard Kurtz.

The lawsuit charges Mr. Henry raped and sexually harassed Ms. Eckhart, an associate producer. It says although Fox News disclosed to the public it had terminated Mr. Henry based on its internal investigation, “in reality Fox News knew that Mr. Henry had engaged in sexual misconduct as far back as early 2017.”

He was terminated “because Fox News realized that it was on the precipice of a public relations nightmare and wanted to get ahead of this suit and be able to claim that it had done the right thing. It had not.”

The lawsuit also says Ms. Eckhart was asked by Fox anchor Liz Claman to perform “a variety of humiliating tasks,” including cleaning and organizing Ms. Claman’s shoes and was “belittled and mistreated” by Ms. Claman, among other charges in the lawsuit.

Ms. Eckhart was terminated in June, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also states Ms. Areu was sexually harassed by Mr. Henry as well as Mr. Carlson, Mr. Hannity, Fox host Howard Kurtz and Fox News political analyst Gianno Caldwell, and later retaliated against when she rejected their advances.

Fox News said in a statement, “Based on the findings of a comprehensive independent investigation conducted by an outside law firm, including interviews with numerous eyewitnesses, we have determined that all of Cathy Areu’s claims against FOX News, including its management as well as its hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity & Howard Kurtz and its contributor Gianno Caldwell, are false, patently frivolous and utterly devoid of any merit.

“We take all claims of harassment, misconduct and retaliation seriously, promptly investigating them and taking immediate action as needed — in this case, the appropriate action based on our investigation is to defend vigorously against these baseless allegations.

“Ms. Areu and Jennifer Eckhart can pursue their claims against Ed Henry directly with him, as FOX News already took swift action as soon as it learned of Ms. Eckhart’s claims on June 25 and Mr. Henry is no longer employed by the network.”

“There were not sexual harassment claims against Ed Henry at FOX News prior to Jennifer Eckhart’s claim on June 25, 2020.”

The lawsuit charges Mr. Henry raped and sexually harassed Ms. Eckhart, an associate producer. It says although Fox News disclosed to the public it had terminated Mr. Henry based on its internal investigation, “in reality Fox News knew that Mr. Henry had engaged in sexual misconduct as far back as early 2017.”