There’s been a cloudy forecast for “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin as her husband has been accused in a lawsuit of committing insurance fraud, which has become a “big thing” at ABC News, according to sources.
“It’s been discussed internally,” one source tells Fox News Digital of the situation at the ABC talk show. “But no one is sure what to make of it.”
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Emmanuel “Manny” Hostin and his practice, Hostin Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine, were named among more than 180 defendants in a major RICO case filed in New York last month.
According to The Daily Mail, Hostin and the other defendants were allegedly receiving kickbacks for performing surgeries and fraudulently billing the insurance company that provides for Uber and Lyft drivers, as well as taxi companies. The lawsuit alleges Hostin was given an “investment” interest in the Empire State Ambulatory Surgery Center while receiving a “steady stream” of patient referrals in return.
Hostin’s attorney told The Daily Mail his client denies all the allegations and called the filing a “blanket, scattershot, meritless lawsuit by a near-bankrupt insurance carrier.”
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A former ABC insider said Hostin was always the first one to jump down a Republican’s throat when they’d done anything wrong on “The View,” and “now she’s not even talking about it on the show.”
“It’s pretty hypocritical,” they said, saying the controversy had become a “big thing at the network.” “It’s death by a thousand cuts. This is just another thing to make people not trust [The View] and not take them seriously.”
As co-host of “The View” and ABC’s senior legal correspondent, Hostin often cites her background as an attorney to weigh in on major legal stories that have made headlines, most notably the litany of criminal charges that were leveled against President-elect Donald Trump. Hostin is known for giving sarcastic readings of Trump’s denials of the charges against him when discussed on the program.
“Sunny Hostin will only look more foolish when she pontificates about ethics and morality and the rule of law,” Fox News contributor Joe Concha said.
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Many media experts, like Cornell Law School professor and media critic William A. Jacobson, don’t think the legal drama rocking the Hostin household will have much of an effect on ABC News nor the host’s standing with “The View.”
“It would be a stretch to claim that anything he did or did not do relates to Ms. Hostin, much less her ability to offer her opinions on ‘The View,'” Jacobson told Fox News Digital.
DePauw University journalism professor Jeffrey McCall similarly predicted the scandal will likely not move the needle as ABC News will “steer clear” from covering the lawsuit in a constantly packed news cycle that is bracing for Trump’s return to the White House.
“It does have a certain sensationalism to it in that Sunny is an outspoken personality on a rather raucous commentary program, but the interest factor is probably rather low for most American news consumers,” McCall said.
ABC News did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. A representative for Hostin also did not comment.
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Disney-ownd ABC is still smarting from its $16 million settlement with Trump after he sued the network and “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos for defamation.
Hostin has remained mum about her husband’s legal troubles since the December lawsuit filing, but that hasn’t stopped her from commenting on her husband’s work, as she did last month while discussing the health insurance industry in the aftermath of the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
“Doctors suffer because of big corporations as well, doctors that want to do good like my husband,” Hostin told her colleagues. “[He] operates on someone even though they don’t have insurance and then has to sue health insurance companies to get paid for the work that he’s been trained his whole life to do.”
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Additionally, comments Hostin made in March 2023 about the severity of insurance fraud went viral this week as she discussed potential charges against former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who had been serving a prison sentence for tax fraud.
“Prosecutors are like, ‘Oh really? Well, how about we add some additional fraud charges onto you?’ And they’re talking about threatening him with insurance fraud, which I would say you could get 20 years in prison. So that’s a death sentence for him,” Hostin said at the time.
Legal experts tell Fox News Digital the $459 million lawsuit embroiling Dr. Hostin and his co-defendants could keep them in court for years.
The lawsuit was filed under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, in the Eastern District of New York—a strategy that legal experts say is designed to have a chilling effect on behavior. It’s also one that risks entangling defendants such as Hostin in years of complex court proceedings—and potentially saddling them with massive payouts as a result.
American Transit alleges that Hostin and other defendants abused New York’s no-fault laws to bill “hundreds of millions” of dollars in fraudulent payments between 2009 and December 2024.
Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.
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