Court Dismisses NY Phil Former Oboist's Defamation Suit Against NY Magazine and Reporter

Liang Wang’s lawsuit against two media outlets and an investigative reporter has been dismissed by the U.S. District Court

In April 2024, the investigative reporter Sammy Sussman released an article in Vulture, a part of New York Magazine, that raised serious sexual assault allegations against oboist Liang Wang and trumpeter Matthew Muckey of the New York Philharmonic. 

A month later, Wang sued Sussman; Sussman’s publisher, New York Media; and NY Media’s parent company, Vox Media, for defamation. 

Wang has since been suspended from his principal post in the NY Phil alongside Muckey.

Though Wang sought $100 million in damages, his case against the defendants was recently dismissed by the U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York.

Referring to Sussman’s article and a podcast episode in which Sussman discusses it, Wang’s suit claims that the former “wrongly depicts him as committing and being fired for a specific incident of sexual misconduct.”

Wang further argues that the article and podcast are defamatory due to their supposed false statements of fact, and their inference of defamation due to “false suggestions, impressions and implications arising from otherwise truthful statements.”

In a court document prepared by the U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, it is explained that under New York law, a defamation plaintiff (in this case, Wang) must show a defamatory statement of fact concerning the plaintiff; publication to a third party; fault; falsity of the defamatory statement; and specific financial losses or harmful actions.

Subramanian writes that “Wang fails to plausibly allege a claim of express defamation.”

“If anything, [the statements in the podcast] seem to indicate that Sussman is trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to differentiate the allegations against Wang and those Kizer made against Muckey,” Subramanian concluded in the court document. “To make a showing of intent, Wang needs more.”

The Clerk of Court was directed to close the case.