Mole Joe Muto Accused Of Grand Larceny, Served With Search Warrant

A “polite” crew from the District Attorney’s office served Fox Mole Joe Muto with a search warrant at 6:30 this morning, Mr. Muto said on Twitter.


Officers took his iPhone, laptop and old notebooks, he wrote, adding that, according to the warrant, he is being investigated for charges including grand larceny.

“They’re pretty worked up over a clip of Romney talking about his horses,” Mr. Muto wrote of the unaired Fox News video footage he published on Gawker. Nick Denton’s news site thought the clip was worth $5,000, five times the threshold for grand larceny in New York.


“I should have done something more innocuous, like hacked a dead girl’s phone and interfered with a police investigation,” he added, referring to Fox News parent company News Corp.’s ongoing phone hacking and bribery scandal.


The scandal thrust chief Rupert Murdoch in the spotlight again today in another installment of the Leveson inquiry. Testifying before a judge, a rehearsed, confident Mr. Murdoch denied asking any favors of Prime Ministers and claimed Gordon Brown misled Parliament when he said Murdoch tabloids hacked his family’s medical records.


In the inquiry, Mr. Murdoch slammed the once-rampant phone hacking practice as a “lazy way of reporters not doing their job,” but maintained that the celebrities, politicians and public figures—including himself—should be subject to greater scrutiny.


Within 24 hours, Fox News announced that they had found the mole and were considering next steps, which included legal action. Within 48 hours, Muto was outed and fired from the network.


Early Wednesday morning, Muto tweeted that he was awakened by "a very police crew from the DA's office" who held a search warrant. Muto wrote that according to the warrant, Fox News was accusing him of grand larceny, among other things. The crew took his laptop, iPhone, and some old notebooks. Muto mocked his former employer as being "pretty worked up" over the video he leaked, which featured Romney discussing his horses.

He then took a jab at Fox News by referencing the News Corp. phone hacking scandal. "I should have done something more innocuous, like hacked a dead girl's phone and interfered with a police investigation," Muto wrote. Muto was referring to News Corp.'s tabloid, News of the World hacking school girl Milly Dowler's cell phone after she went missing. It was initially reported that News of the World deleted voicemails from Dowler's cell phone, therefore tampering with the police investigation. This claim was later disputed.