Russell Simmons must face rape accuser in court, judge decides
Despite vehement denials of an alleged sexual assault in 1988, the music mogul must still face the lawsuit against him
A judge has decided that music mogul Russell Simmons will in fact have to face his rape accuser in court, The Blast reports.
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Simmons is in the middle of battling a lawsuit brought on by a Jane Doe who claimed he assaulted her back in 1988. His attorney argued that the claim was bogus and didn’t even warrant his client’s response to the lawsuit, since the accuser failed to provide a specific date of the alleged assault.
The judge determined that Simmons has 20 days to reply to the claim that he raped the woman in his hotel room. The accuser is seeking $10 million in damages.
Simmons has denied the claims. His attorney said the accuser instead is out for fame and filed the lawsuit “for purposes of publicity” and “to extort large sums of money from Mr. Simmons and for her lawyer to try to make a name for himself.”
Simmons, who has been the subject of multiple sexual abuse allegations from women and stepped down from his Def Jam records and his other businesses, maintains his innocence.
He previously said: “I vehemently deny all the allegations made against me. They have shocked me to my core as I have never been abusive or violent in any way in my relations with women,” he said in the statement.
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“I have submitted myself to multiple lie detector tests. I denied forced sex and sexual harassment allegations brought against me in each test; I also answered no to the question, ‘Have you ever physically forced any woman to have sexual intercourse?’ I passed all of the lie detector tests.”
In the lawsuit, the unnamed California woman claims that Simmons raped her in his hotel room after a concert. She said she attended the concert because her son was a fan of the rap artist who was performing. She said Simmons approached her and invited her and her son backstage for a meet and greet. Simmons, she claims, invited her to an after-party so she dropped her son off at a baby-sitter and later went to the Coco Palms nightclub for the party. Afterwards, Simmons allegedly invited her back to his hotel room.
Once there, Simmons the plaintiff said that Simmons threatened her saying: “I am going to [expletive] you.” She said she declined but he continued his advances by saying: “I am going to [expletive] you or I’m going to [expletive] your son.”
The woman claims that’s when Simmons took advantage of her, threw her on the bed and proceeded to rape her. According to the suit, she left the hotel room crying and told several people about what occurred.
Simmons has never been charged for the alleged assault and has argued that since the California statute of limitations on the incident has since passed, the case should be dropped.
