Russell Simmons has defeated a $10 million lawsuit filed by a Jane Doe in 2018 who accused him of rape.
What We Know:
- An undisclosed woman says she met Simmons after a concert she took her son to. The lawsuit then claims he invited her to an afterparty and she accepted. She first dropped her son off with a babysitter before going for drinks with him at a nightclub. Simmons allegedly needed to pick something up from his hotel later that night. According to the lawsuit, upon arriving to his hotel room, he threw her onto the bed and raped her.
- On November 13, Los Angeles Judge Mark H Epstein ruled in favor of Simmons because the woman’s claims date back to 1988 and therefore was past the statute of limitations; the judge calculated by law she had to have filed the claim in 1990 unless the statute of limitations was tolled-suspended. The plaintiff argued the timing of her case should have been considered appropriate because Simmons was absent from California for an extended period. Yet, Simmons provided proof of his residency in California from 1996-1999 and again from 2012-2018.
- The renowned music producer stood victorious in the lawsuit on a technicality rather than proof of innocence. Although, at the time he did deny her claims along with assault claims from a number of other women. In a statement Simmons 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 goes on to say he took a handful of lie detector tests in regards to the accusations and supposedly passed them all.
- Since 2017, over 20 women have come forward accusing Simmons of sexually assaulting them with at almost half of them alleging they were raped. Jane Doe is not the first woman to sue Simmons for an alleged rape. In 2018, aspiring filmmaker Jennifer Jarosik sued him for $5 million dollars; she claimed he raped her in his home in 2016. Simmons’ attorney contended she only filed claims after hearing about women who suffered “real abuse” receiving large amounts of money. They believed her intentions were to shakedown the defendant in order to fund her film. She eventually dropped the lawsuit.
- The judge gave his tentative ruling on October 1 allowing Jane Doe two weeks to respond. She did not file an opposition to the motion, so Epstein entered the judgement in Simmons’ favor.
Though he resigned from roles in his companies last fall, Russell Simmons has not swayed from his denial in any of the various claims.
