Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo’s extortion lawsuit against six of his former Univision Radio co-workers has been dismissed by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Judge Richard A. Stone tossed out the radio personality’s lawsuit late last week, after determining that Piolín had failed to prove that his extortion claims would prevail during a trial. The judge also ruled that Piolín may be on the hook for his co-workers’ legal fees, since they had to mount a defense to the suit.
Sotelo filed the civil lawsuit in August of last year, claiming that Domingo Rodrigo Ochoa, Tomás Alejandro Fernández, Samuel Heredia, Gerardo Palencia, Sergio Vera, Bertha “Betty” Velasco and their attorneys had teamed up to blackmail him, demanding $4.9 million from him in exchange for their silence.
Sotelo alleged his co-workers threatened to go public with additional allegations about behavior on his Univision Radio show “Piolín por la mañana,” abruptly canceled a month earlier.
Sexual harassment allegations against Sotelo surfaced just one week after Univision Radio cancelled his morning show. At the time, the LAT revealed they had obtained internal documents that showed Alberto “Beto” Cortez, a writer, producer and performer on the radio program had complained to the Univision’s HR chief that Piolín had been “physically, sexually and emotionally harassing” him over a 3-year period.
When the contents of that internal complaint letter popped up, several of Cortez’s co-workers backed him up.
After Sotelo agreed to an interview with Telemundo to challenge those claims, Cortez decided to speak publicly to defend himself. In an interview with Media Moves, Cortez, whose internal sexual harrasment complaint against Piolín initiated the tawdry saga, challenged the extortion claims, denying he had lied about what happened.
Affirming that the judge hasn’t considered all the evidence before making his decision, Sotelo’s attorney, Jeffrey Spitz, has said he’ll appeal the ruling.
