If you are not aware, Mario Batali is one of the most famous chefs in the USA, holding six restaurants in New York City. He is active in the show biz since the 90s and is a true lover of traditional Italian food.
Throughout the years he manages to bring this passion of his into a very successful business. What does the deed of making him a celebrity on the level of a Hollywood star is the countless list of TV programs, and specials that he features on.
Mario Batali Not Guilty Of Sexual Misconduct
Nobody can deny his talent for food. Especially if we are taking into consideration his area of expertise, the Italian cuisine.
Starting from the ‘90s, his popularity is on a constant upraise, but it seems that it reaches its peak in the period of December 2021 and up until now, near the middle of 2022.
What brought Batali back to the headliners and put the tabloid attention to him once again is a trial in which he took place as the accused. Accused of nothing less than sexual misconduct.
According to the 32-year-old Natali Tene, she got sexually harassed by the accused back in 2017, when she was at ‘the Towne Stove and Spirits’ restaurant in Boston. She sat at a table and saw the famous chef. Recognizing who he is, she tries to take a photo of him, when he sees what she attempts to do.
Tene says that immediately after that, she approached him, apologized, and promised to delete the photo.
Somehow, after several hours, both of them got together and they came to a point to take selfies together. Tene took about 10 selfie photos at around 12:30 am on which we can see both of them close together.
“His hands were in sensitive areas, touching me, touching my body,” Tene says. “It seems just like a selfie, but other things were happening simultaneously. His other hand that you can’t see on the photos is touching my body in sensitive areas. He is touching my but, thigh and at one point puts his hand in between my legs.”
She continues saying that during their selfie session he continues to grapple and caress her all around her body. That leads to an invitation for her to go to his hotel room, which of course, she refuses.
The accuser then left the restaurant and swore not to go there anymore. Told the story to her friend and she encouraged her to ‘expose’ the famous chef by speaking to journalists.
According to her, this is not the first time that the chef is having accusations for such things. There were other women as well who faced the same destiny as her. So in order to ‘represent’ all of them, she decides to file a civil suit.
Nonetheless, the lawsuit started and it got to all tabloids and newsletter headlines. The try for defamation of Mario Batali is successful.
Tene testifies these two days taking the stand several times and providing some juicy information on what happened that night. She says that the span of his harassment of different women is more than two decades long and she is willing to go to the end to finalize this and send him to the place where he needs to be – referring to jail.
The trial started this Monday, the 9th of May 2022, and ended on the 10th of May. Just a day after. And the outcome – The judge finds Mario Batali not guilty of sexual misconduct.
The accuser is now accused of being motivated by money. She saw an opportunity in this and was looking to take advantage of it. However, quite the contrary happened.
She happens to be a scammer who on several occasions in the past tries to rip someone off the money she does not lawfully own. Fuller, Batali’s lawyer put a light on an event prior to this, where the accuser, Tene, seems to have tried to fabricate a lease so she could take a deposit back from a health club.
“If somebody gooses you, grabs your privates or your butt, you are going to flinch, you are going to blank, you are going to make a face. You don’t see any of that in any of these photos.” – Fuller says.
A question rises, if you are a victim of sexual harassment, why would you take photos and continue speaking with the harasser? Why would you even go to the extent of taking several selfies with him?
So something here seems not right. Knowing his past accusations, Tene might have seen a possibility to extort some money from the chef and thus tried to lure him into a trap where she would seem like a victim.
Now, I am not saying that Batali is someone who is an example of a good citizen. He might have some past, but in this particular case, he seems innocent.
Batali and his partner in business, Joe Bastianich, in recent past have been accused of harassment several times and ended up paying an amount of more than half a million dollars to ‘victims’. However, this is not to be taken as something upon which he would be judged for all his following trials.
The judges did their job and judged the case in Batali’s favor. Batali’s lawyer discredits the woman as someone with financial motives to accuse Batali. And if she succeeded in this, Batali would have faced a two-year prison sentence and he would have been forced to be registered as a sexual offender.
What do you think? Did Batali get away with one more sexual harassment? Or was he innocent? Let us know in the comments.
