Jeffrey Toobin was masturbating in front of New Yorker Execs
The New Yorker writer and CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin didn’t just expose himself during a Zoom work meeting — he was allegedly caught masturbating in the call with some of magazine’s biggest names and has now been suspended from the publication.
“I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera,’’ the 60-year-old married Harvard Law School grad said in a stunning admission to Vice, which broke news of the cringe-worthy incident Monday.
“I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video,’’ he said.
“I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers.’’
Two people on the video call told Vice the virtual gathering was part of an election simulation last week that included New Yorker notables such as Jane Mayer, Evan Osnos, Masha Gessen and Jelani Cobb, as well as producers from the magazine and WNYC public radio.
The two sources said that at one point, it looked as if Toobin was taking another call and lowered his camera, and that’s when they saw him getting to work — on himself.
It was unclear what, if anything, others on the virtual call saw.
During the simulation, Osnos had been playing the role of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Gessen was President Trump, Mayer represented establishment Republicans, and Cobb stood in for the Democrats, the sources told Vice.
Toobin was supposed to be playing the part of the courts, while Andrew Marantz represented the far right, Sue Halpern was the left and Dexter Filkins stood in for the military.
He then left the Zoom chat for a few moments and called back in — apparently unaware that his camera had been kept on for at least part of his sex act, the sources said.At one point, there was a break for those playing Democrats and Republicans to strategize together, and that’s when sources told Vice they saw Toobin pleasuring himself.
A spokeswoman for the New Yorker said, “Jeffrey Toobin has been suspended while we investigate the matter.”
The magazine’s editor, David Remnick, added in an e-mail to staffers, “Dear All, As you may have read in various news reports today, one of our writers, Jeff Toobin, was suspended after an incident on a Zoom call last week,’’ according to Vice.
“Please be assured that we take such matters seriously and that we are looking into it. Best, David,’’ Remnick said.
CNN added that Toobin would be taking time off from the cable network where he is a senior legal analyst.
“Jeff Toobin has asked for some time off while he deals with a personal issue, which we have granted,” a network rep said.
Toobin, a New Yorker staff writer, famously covered the OJ Simpson trial for the mag in the 1990s. He turned his coverage into a book, which fueled FX’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story’’ in 2016.
He is a prolific author who also has written tomes about everything from the US Supreme Court to onetime kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst.
Toobin did not return requests for comment from The Post.
But Monday wasn’t the first time he’s been in the news over a personal controversy.
In 2008, it was rumored that he was the father of a love child with lawyer Casey Greenfield, the daughter of TV political pundit Jeff Greenfield — who was working at CNN at the time.
Toobin — married since 1986 to former Harvard classmate Amy McIntosh, with whom he has a son and daughter — was eventually proven to be the father’s child, according to reports
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