UPDATE: Additional comments from Hagan added regarding the allegations.
Lawyers representing the former Acadia employee who accuses chef Ryan McCaskey of mounting an online harassment campaign say that a website used to tarnish his client’s reputation is registered in the name of a man who worked at McCaskey restaurants in Chicago and Maine. During a hearing on Friday, former Acadia’s lawyers served Cody Nason said GoDaddy representatives told them that CodyNason.com was registered to Corby Hagan, who last worked with McCaskey in 2019 in Maine at Acadia Provisions as general manager of the restaurant.
The website was instrumental in Nason’s request for a “contactless” emergency order filed against McCaskey. Nason applied for it in September, after he and his lawyer, Daliah Saper, received harassing messages from an anonymous email account that they say is actually McCaskey. McCaskey denies doing so and denies all other irregularities associated with the case.
Nason and McCaskey attended Friday’s hearing virtually under the presidency of Cook County judge Thomas Cushing. According to Saper, GoDaddy said that a credit card bearing the name of Hagan was used to protect the domain “CodyNason.com”. According to Saper, Hagan told his team that the credit card did not belong to him. Saper is filing a summons with Visa (and Hagan), requesting the credit card company to verify Hagan’s complaint.
Hagan tells Eater Chicago that “it has nothing to do with the credit card used on the site” and that he “has not registered the site”. He adds that he did not speak to Saper or any lawyers connected with the case. He found that he worked at the McCaskey restaurant in 2017 in Chicago and in 2019 in Maine – the state where McCaskey currently resides. He added that he has not seen McCaskey since 2019, that is, before the launch of the site in question in the summer of 2020. Hagan also said that he worked with Nason at the Maine restaurant and echoed the claims made in a counterclaim filed by McCaskey. With this complaint, filed in November, Nason was fired from Acádia for allegedly “abusing alcohol at work”. On Friday, three former workers from Acadia. tell Eater Chicago that Hagan and McCaskey were close and that it didn’t surprise them if he sided with his ex-boss.
That conclusion was contested by Hagan, who said he had a brief mandate at both Acadia facilities. He also reiterated that he had not seen McCaskey since 2019.
CodyNason.com included photos and texts that claimed Nason was a pedophile and made references to his deceased brother. Nason claims that his former boss McCaskey discovered that he was among the employees who provided information for Instagram posts that criticized his former boss. This prompted McCaskey to retaliate by creating the site and sending anonymous harassing emails, according to court documents filed by Nason’s lawyers.
During Friday’s hearing, one of McCaskey’s two lawyers – Roger Malavia – suggested that Hagan’s alleged involvement would mean that his client was not responsible for the site. Judge Cushing warned Malavia that Saper’s words had no legal influence on the outcome of the hearing.
It’s another twist in the case against McCaskey, the chef and owner of Acadia, a 10-year-old Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago’s South Loop. Over the summer, a group of former McCaskey employees shared allegations of a toxic work environment at Acadia, using Instagram to post their reports of mistreatment. Unverified allegations were posted on an Instagram identifier that aggregated service worker stories. @ The86dList emerged after the summer protest against George Floyd and has since gone dark without a post since the end of July. Eater Chicago spoke to several members of the industry – including former Acadia employees and public relations representatives – who corroborated some of the stories posted online.
In court, Saper said his team sent subpoenas to digital companies Yelp, GoDaddy and Microsoft. Lawyers expect companies to be able to provide information to reveal whether McCaskey was behind the site posted in July with the aim of ruining their client’s reputation.
Acádia has been closed since the summer, but McCaskey told Eater Chicago that he plans to reopen eventually.
The next trial hearing is scheduled for March 10.