Howard Stern is being sued for airing live a phone call that a woman thought she was having privately with an IRS agent.
Stern was sued by Judith Barrigas on Monday for airing a 45-minute conversation that she had with IRS Agent Jimmy Forsythe, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
According to the lawsuit, Barrigas put in a call to the IRS’s service center on May 19, 2015, with questions about how the IRS “applied prior year liabilities to her tax refund.”
Before Barrigas was connected to Forsythe, though, the agent was on another line with Stern's show. He put the Stern show on hold to take the call with Barrigas.
Someone on Stern’s show was able to listen in on the Barrigas-Forsythe phone conversation and was apparently so intrigued by it that they decided to air the dialogue live on the radio show.
The show, which has 30 million subscribers, shared Barrigas’ phone number on the air.
After that, Barrigas began receiving tons of calls and text messages, according to the Washington Post.
“While on the phone with Agent Forsythe, Mrs. Barrigas suddenly began to receive a barrage of text messages and phone calls from unknown callers/individuals,” according to the lawsuit. “The text messages were informing Mrs. Barrigas that her personal information and phone number was being aired live on the Stern show.”
“I started to receive phone calls and text messages from all over the country informing me that the information I was discussing with the IRS agent was being aired on the Howard Stern Show,” Barrigas told WBZ.
“As soon as I heard of this information I just started to quiver, and had what I would call an out-of-body experience,” she added.
“My phone number is out there, my personal conversation and I just feel terribly violated and I feel like I’m in jeopardy that my credit information might be out there and I’m just totally devastated.”
“We are aware of this troubling situation, and we are currently reviewing the matter," said the IRS. "The IRS takes the confidentiality of taxpayer information very seriously, and we have high standards that we expect and require employees to follow.”