San Diego CBS8 reporter Anna Laurel is suing KUSI, her former employer, and its chief financial officer for reading and sharing her private email — even after she left the independent TV station in 2020.
In a seven-page complaint filed last week in downtown Superior Court, Laurel accuses Stephen Sadler, the CFO, and KUSI’s owner of accessing her personal Gmail account “in an attempt to intimidate Laurel from providing truthful testimony that would turn out to be damaging to KUSI.”
In the run-up to Sandra Maas’ spring 2023 pay-equity trial, Laurel was labeled a “secret agent” conspiring with Maas, her friend and former KUSI colleague.
In February 2022, lawyers for KUSI-owner McKinnon Broadcasting Co. suggested without evidence that Maas promised Laurel a financial windfall if she helped Maas’ case. (Such accusations weren’t allowed to be mentioned in the trial itself.)
Laurel, 43, didn’t respond to social media messages requesting comment.
But her attorney — Josh Gruenberg, whose team also helped Maas win $1.7 million from KUSI — told Times of San Diego on Thursday that “deciding to sue one’s former employer is not an easy decision. Here, Ms. Laurel thought long and hard about the violations to her right to privacy and ultimately determined KUSI and Sadler needed to be held accountable for their actions.”
KUSI and Sadler have yet to list legal counsel in the new case, assigned to Judge Joel R. Wohlfeil. Sadler and the station didn’t respond to requests for comment.
A money figure isn’t attached to the suit, but it exceeds $25,000, according to court records. The suit, which demands a jury trial, alleges violation of the state’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, Penal Code § 502, and “intrusion into private affairs.”
As a “direct, foreseeable and proximate result of Defendants’ conduct,” the suit says, Laurel
“continues to suffer humiliation, embarrassment, loss of reputation and mental pain and anguish.”
Among other things, Laurel seeks general and compensatory damages, emotional distress damages and punitive damages “in an amount necessary to make an example of and to punish Defendant, and to deter future similar misconduct.”
Proving that Sadler read Laurel’s private email won’t be hard. He fessed up to it.
“Sadler admitted to conducting two to five separate searches of Laurel’s personal email account through 2020, for a total of upwards of three hours,” the suit says.
In a Maas case deposition, the CFO admitted reading 50-100 of Laurel’s private emails over several days on a news desk laptop. In old court papers, Sadler said Laurel’s Gmail account was “left open” on a shared laptop, and he was reviewing them “to protect the company.”
Laurel wasn’t aware of what her attorneys called “hacked emails” until shortly before her December 2021 deposition in the Maas litigation.
“KUSI had sent Maas’s and Laurel’s attorneys copies of emails it intended to use in her deposition, including private emails with her husband wholly unrelated to KUSI or Maas,” the new suit says.
At the time, Laurel said the San Diego Police Department was investigating the matter, and the City Attorney’s Office was “definitely interested in this case.” (No referrals for prosecution were made.)
Laurel had hired Gruenberg Law to represent her since she was to be deposed as a witness in the Maas case.
“The truth is Sandra was a wonderful co-worker,” Laurel told Times of San Diego in February 2022. “This business is so cut-throat, and she was wonderful to me. And so I guess [KUSI] really [didn’t] want to hear that. … [Sadler] figured that Sandra and I were in cahoots together.”
Laurel called Sadler “this nasty creep” for reading her private emails long after she worked at KUSI’s Kearny Mesa headquarters. A KUSI attorney shared copies of her emails with the court.
“They’re trying to intimidate me,” Laurel said 17 months ago. “My grandmother’s banana bread recipe that they saw in an email is normally under lock and key.” Also viewed, she said, was her banking and medical information.
Laurel’s mistaken “send” led to the morass.
On Aug. 26, 2020, Laurel meant to write Gruenberg Law attorney Daphne Delvaux. But instead she sent email — on her personal account — to Sally Luck, KUSI’s longtime director of human resources.
In that email, Laurel accidentally informed Luck and KUSI that she would be retaining Gruenberg Law.
“At that point, given Ms. Laurel had hired the same legal counsel as Ms. Maas, KUSI became aware Laurel would likely not be providing testimony generally favorable to the company,” KUSI lawyers said.
In April 2022, Judge Frazier ordered KUSI to turn over all copies of ex-anchor Laurel’s private emails that Sadler admitted reading on a shared newsroom laptop.
In a long review of case law, Frazier wrote that even though an employer can inspect an employee’s company email, it can’t snoop into private email accessed via company property.
Laurel wasn’t using the company email account.
“Ms. Laurel’s personal web-based Gmail account is not part of the Company’s information systems,” Frazier wrote. “Moreover, although [KUSI’s] policy indicates employees have no right of privacy when using company equipment for personal purposes, the court is not persuaded that either [KUSI’s] policy or the legal authorities extend far enough to permit an employer, its executives, or any of its other employees to conduct a search of a personal, web-based email account.”
But Frazier wouldn’t touch allegations by Maas’ attorneys that Laurel’s emails were “stolen” and that KUSI committed a crime.
“That issue is not properly before this court, and this court expresses no opinion on this issue,” Frazier wrote.
In the new case, Laurel’s attorneys (including Joshua Pang) say: “Laurel uncovered … that Sadler actually accessed her email many more times than Sadler admitted to, for about a six-month span in 2020 and through her termination in February 2021.”
The suit alleged that Sadler appeared to be searching Laurel’s email frequently since date-stamped email printouts “unwittingly showed he printed emails either the same day or the day after Laurel received or sent emails from her email account.”
The email was personal and confidential, the suit added.
“Sadler admits he did not make an effort to ask for Laurel’s permission before going through her personal email account for hours,” says the suit filed July 28.
According to a newsroom executive, Sadler still works for KUSI, being sold to Nexstar Media Group.
But Sadler, a CPA, says on his LinkedIn page: “I am looking for a new role and would appreciate your support. Thank you in advance for any connections, advice, or opportunities you can offer. #OpenToWork.”
Updated at 10:50 a.m. Aug. 4, 2023.