Howard Stern scored a big win in court with a judge tossing his ex-assistant’s entire lawsuit and ruling that the NDA at the center of their legal war still stands.
According to the decision, the judge rejected Leslie Kuhn’s claim that the shock jock’s company may have hacked her work email and electronically signed the May 2025 agreement for her. The court pointed to an email sent from Kuhn’s account saying “Signed NDA attached”, along with the agreement bearing her electronic signature. The judge called her hacking theory a “bald assertion”.
Kuhn sued Howard, his wife Beth, and their companies, seeking at least $2.5 million and asking the court to free her from confidentiality agreements dated 2022 and 2025. She alleged the Sterns treated her poorly while she worked as an executive assistant in their Southampton, New York mansion. Howard called the case a “shakedown” and a “transparent sham”.
Kuhn also argued she got nothing in exchange for signing the NDA, but the judge noted she kept her job for another nine months, earned more than $192,000 and was awarded an $80,000 bonus. Howard had already agreed not to enforce the 2022 agreement, but the judge upheld the 2025 NDA and dismissed Kuhn’s entire lawsuit.
The judge didn’t sanction Kuhn but warned her against making more frivolous arguments.
