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UPDATE: Added additional comments from Hagan regarding the allegations.
Lawyers representing former Acadia employee who accuses Chief Ryan McCaskey of mounting an online harassment campaign say a website used to tarnish their client’s reputation is registered with a man who worked in McCaskey’s restaurants in Chicago and Maine. At a court hearing on Friday, attorneys for former Acadia department Cody Nason said officials from GoDaddy told them CodyNason.com was registered with Corby Hagan, who last worked with McCaskey in 2019 in Maine at Acadia Provisions as general manager of the restaurant.
The website was at the heart of Nason’s demand for a “no-contact” emergency order filed against McCaskey. Nason filed the request in September after he and his attorney, Daliah Saper, received harassing messages from an anonymous email account they claimed was actually McCaskey. McCaskey denies doing this and denies all other wrongdoing associated with the case.
Nason and McCaskey attended Friday’s hearing virtually chaired by Cook County Judge Thomas Cushing. According to Saper, GoDaddy said a credit card with Hagan’s name on it was used to secure the “CodyNason.com” domain. According to Saper, Hagan told his team the credit card didn’t belong to him. Saper is filing a subpoena with Visa (and Hagan), asking the credit card company to verify Hagan’s claim.
Hagan told Eater Chicago that he had “nothing to do with a credit card used on the website” and that he “did not register the website”. He adds that he has not spoken with Saper or with any attorneys linked to the case. He verified that he worked at McCaskey’s restaurant in 2017 in Chicago and in 2019 in Maine – the state where McCaskey currently resides. He added that he had not seen McCaskey since 2019, before the website in question launched in the summer of 2020. Hagan also worked with Nason at the Maine restaurant and echoed the allegations made in a counterclaim. filed by McCaskey. This claim, filed in November, Nason was fired from Acadia for allegedly “abusing alcohol at work”. Friday, three former Acadian workers. tell Eater Chicago that Hagan and McCaskey were close and it didn’t surprise them if he sided with his former boss.
This finding was challenged by Hagan, who said he had brief tenures at both Acadia sites. He also reiterated that he had not seen McCaskey since 2019.
CodyNason.com included photos and text claiming Nason was a pedophile and referring to his late brother. Nason alleges that his former boss McCaskey discovered he was among the workers who provided information for Instagram posts critical of their former boss. This led McCaskey to hit back by setting up the website and sending harassing anonymous emails, according to court documents filed by Nason’s attorneys.
During Friday’s hearing, one of McCaskey’s two attorneys – Roger Malavia – suggested that Hagan’s alleged involvement would mean his client was not responsible for the website. Judge Cushing warned Malavia that Saper’s words had no legal bearing 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 neighborhood. Over the summer, a group of former McCaskey workers shared allegations of a toxic work environment at Acadia, using Instagram to post their abuse accounts. Unverified allegations were posted on an Instagram account that aggregated the stories of service workers. @ The86dList appeared after George Floyd’s protest over the summer and has since gone dark without publication since late July. Eater Chicago spoke to several members of the industry – including former Acadia workers 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 hope the companies can provide information to reveal whether McCaskey was behind the website released in July intended to ruin their client’s reputation.
Acadia has been closed since the summer, but McCaskey tells Eater Chicago he plans to reopen eventually.
The next court date is scheduled for March 10.
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