By Robert McGreevy
The New York Times is featuring former CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin as a contributing opinion writer over four years after coworkers caught him masturbating on a video call, Puck News reported Wednesday.
After initially reporting that Toobin was joining the opinion section as a staffer, Puck’s Dylan Byers corrected his initial scoop to report that Toobin was joining the Times as a contributing opinion writer.
+ mea culpa: Toobin is now a New York Times contributing opinion writer. He is not on staff. I regret the error.
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) February 12, 2025
The New Yorker, who he previously worked for as a staff writer, fired Toobin in 2020 after his co-workers caught him masturbating on a joint video conference between The New Yorker and WNYC staffers, according to Vice News.
CNN granted Toobin time off, which he requested in the wake of the incident, but ultimately allowed him to return to his position of senior legal analyst. (RELATED: Jeffrey Toobin – Who Jerked Off In Front Of His Coworkers – Thinks Rittenhouse Is An ‘Idiot’)
Toobin retained his CNN position until he departed the network in 2022, capping off a 20-year career there.
He apologized after the initial October 2020 incident and again upon his return to CNN’s airwaves in June 2021.
“I thought that I had turned off the Zoom call. Now, that’s not a defense. This was deeply moronic and indefensible. But I mean, that — that is part of — that is part of the story. And you know, I have spent the seven subsequent months, miserable months in my life, I can certainly confess, trying to be a better person,” he told CNN colleague Alisyn Camerota when he returned.
He also outlined what he appeared to view as his redemption efforts, which included working at a food bank and “trying to become the kind of person that people can trust again.”
Toobin was also embroiled in another scandal involving sexual impropriety. In 2008, he impregnated co-worker Jeff Greenfield’s daughter Casey Greenfield and tried to convince her to abort the child, sources told to In Touch Weekly.
Greenfield ultimately had the child, though she said Toobin initially refused to acknowledge paternity, according to The New York Times.
Greenfield sued Toobin for child support and custody, and the latter was heard in Manhattan Family Court, the Times reported. He eventually agreed to take a paternity test, which found that the child was his. Greenfield ultimately received full custody of the baby.
