Howard Stern and his wife, Beth Ostrosky Stern, urged a New York judge on Wednesday to toss a lawsuit by a former personal assistant, calling the complaint “a thinly veiled attempted shakedown” and accusing the plaintiff of fabricating claims to extract money. The memorandum to dismiss, filed by lawyers for the Stern parties in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, frames the case as meritless and seeks an early end to the litigation.
The underlying suit was filed April 5 by Leslie Kuhn, who worked as an assistant and office manager for the “Howard Stern Show.” Kuhn alleges she was fired “as a result of, among other things, a hostile work environment and enablement of that hostile work environment,” and contends that two confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements dated May 10, 2022, and May 23, 2025, were fraudulent and unsigned by her. In her original filing, Kuhn asked the court to void the agreements on the ground that they silence her while allowing the defendants to speak freely.
In their motion to dismiss, the Stern parties accuse Kuhn of orchestrating a scheme to obtain a “staggering ‘hush-money’ payment.” The filing argues Kuhn “hatched a plan to extract” such a payment and characterizes the lawsuit as “based on a complete fabrication.” The Sterns contend Kuhn elected to publicize her termination rather than explain it in job interviews and is now seeking court help to remedy what the memorandum calls “self-inflicted harm.”
The Sterns’ lawyers also dispute Kuhn’s claim she never signed the 2022 agreement, saying she signed it both electronically in May 2022 and again with a “wet ink signature” in September of that year. The filing includes an April 2 email from an attorney for the Stern parties to Kuhn’s counsel stating the Sterns “have no intention of discussing your client, the terms of her employment or termination, and will simply give a neutral reference if asked.”
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Kuhn’s attorney, John Leonard of Hampton Bays, said his client will “vigorously oppose” the dismissal motion. Leonard complained that the Stern side has produced multiple versions of the agreements at different times — first a May 2022 agreement, then a May 2025 agreement, and, weeks before a scheduled preliminary conference, a September 2022 version — and called the late disclosures an attempt to extend and complicate litigation. Leonard said the September document submission “is only going to extend litigation.”
The Stern parties are represented by Manhattan law firm Pryor Cashman; the firm did not immediately return messages seeking comment. The dispute is now headed to the court for resolution of threshold issues — including the authenticity and enforceability of the disputed nondisclosure agreements — before any underlying merits of the hostile-work-environment claim are addressed. A preliminary conference in the Manhattan court is expected to set a schedule for briefing and discovery.
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The case pits competing narratives: Kuhn’s allegation that she was wrongfully terminated and silenced by potentially forged NDAs, and the Sterns’ insistence that the agreements are legitimate and the lawsuit is an opportunistic attempt to secure hush money. How the court addresses the documentary discrepancies and the parties’ contrasting accounts will determine whether the matter proceeds to discovery and trial or is dismissed early.
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