Mets fire Jared Porter after report that GM sent lewd texts to reporter in 2016

The Mets have fired general manager Jared Porter after an ESPN report released Monday detailed lewd, harrassing and inappropriate text messages sent to a foreign reporter in 2016.

New Mets owner Steve Cohen took to Twitter to announce the news, referencing the “importance of integrity” from his introductory press conference with the team.

“We have terminated Jared Porter this morning,” Cohen’s tweet reads. “In my initial press conference I spoke about the importance of integrity and I meant it. There should be zero tolerance for this type of behavior.”

On Jan. 19, ESPN’s Mina Kimes and Jeff Passan reported that Porter sent 60 text messages to a foreign correspondent covering the Cubs when Porter was a member of Chicago’s front office in 2016. The messages included an image of a bare penis. Porter declined to comment on the report.

The reporter, who has now left the journalism field according to ESPN, did not come forward out of fear of her career being harmed and repercussions in her home country.

“My No. 1 motivation is I want to prevent this from happening to someone else,” she told ESPN. “Obviously, he’s in a much greater position of power. I want to prevent that from happening again. The other thing is, I never really got the notion that he was truly sorry.”

Porter had apologized to the reporter for the messages in 2016 after realizing they were “extremely inappropriate, very offensive, and getting out of line.”

Porter told ESPN on Monday that he had texted with the woman but said that “the more explicit ones are not of me. Those are like, kinda like joke-stock images.”

Porter, 41, was hired by the Mets in December. He had been with the Diamondbacks prior to taking the Mets job.