Fox News Mole Joe Muto Enters Courtroom in Handcuffs

By Chris Ariens 

Fox News mole Joe Muto entered a Manhattan courtroom in handcuffs this afternoon, pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges.

A source inside the courtroom tells TVNewser two detectives escorted a cuffed Muto into the courtroom, sat him on a back bench and about 5 minutes later removed the handcuffs as he moved to the front of the courtroom to hear the judge read out the plea agreement. That part of the proceedings took about 20 minutes.

In April 2012, while still a Fox News employee, Muto began writing stories for Gawker about life inside Fox News. He became known as the Fox News mole. After his identity was revealed, he was fired from Fox.

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Muto must pay a $1,000 fine, the $5,000 he earned from Gawker which goes to a good cause, serve 10 days of community service assigned by the court, then 200 hours of community service at a nonprofit organization. He’s also not getting back is laptop taken during an early morning police search. Muto had worked at Fox News for 8 years, most recently as an AP on “O’Reilly Factor.”

He’s since written a book about the experience, which comes out in a few weeks. One of the conditions of the agreement: if he is found to be in possession of any Fox News item, whether it be a key chain or an 80’s era image of Bill O’Reilly, Muto could be sent to jail for a year.

A Fox News spokesperson tells TVNewser, “We are very grateful to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office for their dogged pursuit of this case and for obtaining justice in this matter.”

See the plea agreement after the jump…

Joe Muto Plea Agreement

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