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    Depardieu Sexual Assault Suit Dropped Over Statute of Limitations

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    Hélène Darras, a French actress, had accused Gérard Depardieu of groping her in 2007 on a movie set. A separate investigation of the actor is proceeding, Paris prosecutors said.A sexual assault lawsuit filed against Gérard Depardieu by a French actress has been dropped because it was past the statute of limitations, prosecutors in Paris said on Monday, but the French actor is still under investigation in a separate case.In the lawsuit that was dropped, the actress Hélène Darras had accused Depardieu of groping her on the set of “Disco,” a comedy released in 2008. Her suit had been filed in September but was made public only last month, shortly before she appeared in a France 2 television documentary alongside three other women who also accused Depardieu of inappropriate comments or sexual misconduct.The documentary, which showed Depardieu making crude sexual and sexist comments during a 2018 trip to North Korea, set off a fierce debate in France that prompted President Emmanuel Macron and dozens of actors, directors and other celebrities to defend Depardieu, splitting the French movie industry.Depardieu, 75, has denied any wrongdoing, and he has not been convicted in connection with any of the accusations against him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      T.I. and Tiny Are Accused of Rape in Lawsuit

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      The Atlanta rapper and his wife, who have denied the allegations, are accused of drugging and assaulting a military veteran around 2005 in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on Tuesday.The Atlanta rapper T.I., born Clifford Harris, was sued on Tuesday, along with his wife, Tameka Harris, known as Tiny, by a woman who accused the couple of drugging and raping her after she met them at a Los Angeles nightclub around 2005.In the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court under California’s Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act, which extended the statute of limitations for sexual abuse claims, the woman is identified only as Jane Doe, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, who was 22 or 23 years old at the time. She previously gave her account of the alleged assault and its aftermath in an interview with The New York Times in 2021, when she spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her family.In her lawsuit, the woman accuses Mr. Harris, 43, and Ms. Harris, 48, of sexual battery, battery, sexual assault, negligence, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and is seeking damages.In a statement provided by a lawyer for the couple, Andrew B. Brettler, Mr. and Ms. Harris denied the accusations, calling the civil suit a shakedown. “This plaintiff has been threatening to file this lawsuit for three years,” the statement said. “For three years, we have emphatically and categorically denied these allegations. For three years we have maintained our innocence and refused to pay these extortionate demands for things we didn’t do.”They added, “We are innocent of these fake claims, we will not be shaken down and we look forward to our day in court.”Prosecutors in Los Angeles had previously declined to pursue criminal charges against the Harrises in this incident, citing the statute of limitations. “Without the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence being evaluated, the case is declined due to the expiration,” the Los Angeles County authorities wrote in a charge evaluation filing in September 2021.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Sexual Abuse Suits Against Michael Jackson’s Companies Are Revived

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      An appeals court in California determined that lawsuits by two men who say Jackson molested them as children can proceed.Two men who have accused Michael Jackson of sexually abusing them as children are able to resume their lawsuits against companies owned by the singer, who died in 2009, a California appeals court ruled on Friday.The men, Wade Robson, 40, and James Safechuck, 45, have alleged that Mr. Jackson sexually abused them for years and that employees of the two companies — MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc. — were complicit, acting as his “co-conspirators, collaborators, facilitators and alter egos” for the abuse. The suits say that employees of the companies owed a “duty of care” to the boys and failed to take steps to prevent abuse.Mr. Robson’s and Mr. Safechuck’s stories were featured in the 2019 HBO documentary “Leaving Neverland,” in which the men accused Mr. Jackson of molesting them and cultivating relationships with their families to access the boys’ bodies.“Everybody wanted to meet Michael or be with Michael,” Mr. Safechuck said in the film. “He was already larger than life. And then he likes you.”The two companies are now owned by Mr. Jackson’s estate, which has repeatedly denied that he abused the boys.“We remain fully confident that Michael is innocent of these allegations, which are contrary to all credible evidence and independent corroboration, and which were only first made years after Michael’s death by men motivated solely by money,” Jonathan Steinsapir, a lawyer for Mr. Jackson’s estate, said in a statement after the decision.Vince Finaldi, a lawyer for Mr. Safechuck and Mr. Robson, said in a statement that the court had overturned “incorrect rulings in these cases, which were against California law and would have set a dangerous precedent that endangered children.”Mr. Robson and Mr. Safechuck filed their suits against the companies in 2013 and 2014, respectively, but both cases were dismissed in 2017 because they exceeded California’s statute of limitations. They were reopened in 2020 after a new state law provided plaintiffs in child sex abuse cases an additional period to file lawsuits.In October 2020 and April 2021, the suits were again dismissed when a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled that the two corporations and their employees were not legally obligated to protect the men from Mr. Jackson.But on Friday, California’s Second District Court of Appeal ruled that “a corporation that facilitates the sexual abuse of children by one of its employees is not excused from an affirmative duty to protect those children merely because it is solely owned by the perpetrator of the abuse.”In a concurring opinion, Justice John Shepard Wiley Jr. said that for the purposes of civil liability, the corporations did the sole bidding of Mr. Jackson, who had a duty of care to Mr. Robson and Mr. Safechuck.“So did Jackson’s marionettes, because Jackson’s fingers held every string,” he said, adding, “These corporations could have taken cost-effective steps to reduce the risk of harm.”The cases, which were consolidated in the appeals court, will now go back to a trial court.In his lawsuit, Mr. Robson, who is now a choreographer and director, says that Mr. Jackson molested him from age 7 to 14. After meeting Mr. Jackson through a dance competition when he was 5, Mr. Robson performed in his music videos and released an album on his record label.According to his suit, the abuse started in 1990 when Mr. Jackson invited Mr. Robson and his family to stay at his Neverland Ranch in California. Mr. Robson and Mr. Jackson slept in the same bed and touched each other’s genitals, according to the suit. Over the next seven years, the suit said, they engaged in sexual acts including masturbation and oral sex.The suit says that employees of MJJ Productions witnessed the abuse and that employees of the two companies took steps to ensure that Mr. Jackson was alone with Mr. Robson and other children.Mr. Safechuck’s lawsuit says he was one of several children entrapped by the companies’ “child sexual abuse procurement and facilitation organization.” According to his suit, Mr. Safechuck met Mr. Jackson during filming for a Pepsi commercial in late 1986 or early 1987 and later became a dancer for Mr. Jackson.Mr. Jackson showed the 10-year-old boy how to masturbate while on tour in 1988, the suit alleges, and abused Mr. Safechuck hundreds of times over the next four years. The employees of MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures coordinated the visits, according to the suit.Before these lawsuits, Mr. Jackson twice faced criminal investigations into the possible sexual abuse of children.In 1994, the district attorneys for Los Angeles and Santa Barbara Counties decided not to proceed with charges that Mr. Jackson had molested three boys because the “primary alleged victim” decided not to testify. Mr. Jackson, who denied any wrongdoing, had reached a $20 million civil settlement with the boy’s family.In 2003, a Santa Barbara County district attorney charged Mr. Jackson with several counts of child molesting and serving alcohol to minors. After a 14-week trial in 2005, he was acquitted by a jury. More

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      Lawsuit Accusing Bill Cosby of Sexual Assault Heads to Trial

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      A civil suit accusing Mr. Cosby of assaulting a teenager in the 1970s, which he denies, will be the first to head to court since his criminal conviction was overturned last year.Judy Huth met Bill Cosby when she was still a teenager, she has recounted in court papers. It was the mid-1970s, and Mr. Cosby had already had his breakthrough on the TV series “I Spy” and become a movie star, but was still years away from his huge success on “The Cosby Show.” Ms. Huth and a friend spotted him on a film set in a park in San Marino, Calif., and ended up meeting him in person, according to her court filings.Days later, she asserts in the filings, she went to Mr. Cosby’s tennis club at his invitation, where he gave her and her friend alcohol before taking them to the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, where she accuses him of forcing her to perform a sex act on him in a bedroom. Mr. Cosby has described her account as a fabrication since the case was first filed in 2014.This week the job of deciding who is credible will fall to a jury in Los Angeles Superior Court, as the civil trial of Mr. Cosby on Ms. Huth’s accusations that he sexually assaulted her is scheduled to get underway.Ms. Huth’s recollection regarding when the encounter occurred has changed. She initially said that it had happened in 1974, when she was 15. But more recently she concluded that it was actually in 1975, when she was 16, according to court papers. Since the beginning, she has said in court papers that she recalled Mr. Cosby telling her and her friend to claim they were both 19 if asked at the mansion.The change of dates has led Mr. Cosby’s team to further dispute her account. Andrew Wyatt, a spokesman for Mr. Cosby, said in a statement that Ms. Huth had “made inconsistent statements since the inception of filing this civil suit against Mr. Cosby.” Ms. Huth has said that recently released information supplied by Mr. Cosby’s team had led her to reconsider what year it occurred.Judy Huth, left, in 2015 with her attorney, Gloria Allred.Anthony McCartney/Associated PressThe civil case, one of the last unsettled lawsuits against Mr. Cosby, was largely put on hold while prosecutors in Pennsylvania pursued the criminal case that resulted in his 2018 conviction on charges of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand. But the conviction was overturned, and Mr. Cosby was released from prison last year when an appellate panel found that his due process rights had been violated when prosecutors ignored an assurance from a prior district attorney that Mr. Cosby would not be prosecuted.With the criminal case overturned, the significance of Ms. Huth’s suit has risen in the minds of some of the many women who have accused Mr. Cosby of being a sexual predator.“I think that Judy’s trial may be our last stand for justice and seeing accountability come to fruition in our stand against Bill Cosby,” Victoria Valentino, who says Mr. Cosby drugged and raped her in Los Angeles in 1969, said in a text. (Mr. Cosby has denied all allegations of sexual assault, and said any encounters were consensual.) She said she plans to attend part of the trial, which, barring a last-minute settlement, is set to begin with jury selection this week and opening arguments expected June 1.Patricia Steuer, who accused Mr. Cosby of drugging and assaulting her in 1978 and 1980, said that she saw the Huth civil trial as a chance to get a measure of justice. “There is no other recourse at the moment,” she said. “It probably is the only avenue available.”Mr. Cosby, now 84, has already faced multiple other civil cases filed against him by women, many of whom sued him for defamation after his legal team dismissed as fictions their accusations of sexual misconduct by him. Eleven civil cases ended in settlements, with 10 of the settlements having been agreed to by Mr. Cosby’s former insurance company over his objections, according to his spokesman.Ms. Huth’s lawsuit is poised to become the first civil case accusing Mr. Cosby of sexual assault to reach trial. In court papers, Ms. Huth says that in a bedroom at the Playboy Mansion, Mr. Cosby tried to put his hand down her pants and then forced her to fondle him.Ms. Huth filed her suit in December 2014, at a time when Mr. Cosby was facing allegations by many women who said he had drugged and sexually assaulted them, in incidents spanning several decades.She also reported her accusation to the police, but the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office declined to file criminal charges because the statute of limitations had passed.Her lawyers argued that the period for a civil claim had not expired, however, because in California it is extended for adults who say they were victims of sexual abuse as minors but repressed the experience. The deadline to file such a suit is determined in part by when the person, as an adult, becomes aware of the severe psychological effect of the abuse, her lawyers said.In 2020, California law was amended to further extend the statute of limitations for sexual assault filings in civil court.Ms. Huth’s revised timeline, which says Mr. Cosby assaulted her when she was 16 rather than 15, should not affect her ability to pursue the suit since the law views a 16-year-old as a minor, Ms. Huth’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, said.Mr. Cosby’s lawyers argued in legal papers that they felt ambushed by the sudden change in Ms. Huth’s account. They said that their research had been geared toward establishing Mr. Cosby’s and Ms. Huth’s whereabouts in 1974, and said they had prepared evidence to show that the entertainer was not at the Playboy Mansion in the period she suggested in 1974.Log books from the Playboy Mansion for 1974 do not list either Ms. Huth or her friend as having visited, according to Mr. Cosby’s lawyers.At a hearing last week, the judge asked Playboy to produce records for 1975 and agreed that Ms. Huth and the friend who accompanied her should sit for a further deposition before the trial begins.Mr. Cosby’s lawyers have also questioned whether she had only remembered the alleged abuse a short time before filing the suit because, they said, she had contacted a tabloid about it 10 years earlier.Mr. Wyatt, the spokesman for Mr. Cosby, said in the statement, “We feel confident that the Playboy records along with Ms. Huth changing her timeline of events from 1974 to 1975 in the 11th hour will vindicate Mr. Cosby.”Mr. Cosby acknowledged meeting with Ms. Huth at the Playboy Mansion, and Ms. Huth has produced photographs of them together that she said were taken there, according to court papers. But he has denied that she was a minor when they met.“While defendant does not deny that he socialized with plaintiff at the Playboy Mansion, as he did other women and men who frequented the club,” his lawyers said in court papers, “defendant vehemently denies that plaintiff was underage.”Ms. Huth has said that she changed the timeline of her account in part because she only recently realized, as a result of documents put forward by Mr. Cosby, that the filming of the movie “Let’s Do It Again,” where she says they met, took place later than she had recalled.The trial is expected to last two weeks, and Ms. Huth, who is seeking damages from Mr. Cosby, is expected to testify, along with the friend who accompanied her to the Playboy Mansion. Mr. Cosby has invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and will not testify. He will not attend the trial, Mr. Wyatt said.During pretrial hearings, Ms. Huth had asked for a bench trial, but the trial will be in front of a 12-person jury, with at least 9 of 12 votes needed for a conviction.Mr. Cosby settled a civil case Ms. Constand brought against him in 2006 for $3.4 million. The other civil cases were settled for undisclosed terms by the insurance carried on Mr. Cosby’s home policy, which provided “personal injury” coverage in a range of circumstances, including lawsuits that accused the policy holder of defamation.The other ongoing civil case against Mr. Cosby was filed last year by Lili Bernard, an actor and visual artist, who accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting her at a hotel in Atlantic City in 1990, when she was 26. She was able to file the suit, which is still in its early stages, because in 2019 New Jersey overhauled its laws on the statute of limitations for sexual assault cases, extending the time limit for filing suits and creating a special two-year window allowing people to bring cases regardless of how long ago the alleged assaults might have occurred. More

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      in Television

      Bill Cosby Is Sued; Woman Says He Sexually Assaulted Her in 1990

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      The suit was filed under a change in New Jersey law that extended the deadline to sue in cases involving allegations of sexual assault.A woman sued Bill Cosby in New Jersey on Thursday, accusing the entertainer of drugging and sexually assaulting her at a hotel in Atlantic City in 1990, when she was 26.The woman, Lili Bernard, now 57, an actor and visual artist, has long been public about her accusations against Mr. Cosby. She was able to file the suit because New Jersey overhauled its laws on the statute of limitations for sexual assault cases in 2019.Under the old laws, Ms. Bernard would have been time-barred from filing suit because lawsuits had to be filed within two years of the alleged assault. The reforms extended the time limit to seven years and created a special two-year window, ending next month, to bring cases regardless of how long ago the alleged assault might have occurred.Ms. Bernard, a former guest star on “The Cosby Show,” said in court papers that Mr. Cosby had acted as her mentor before an incident in which she said he drugged and raped her at the hotel, the Trump Taj Mahal. She began to feel dizzy after drinking something he gave her, she said in the court papers.“I have waited a long time to be able to pursue my case in court and I look forward to being heard and to hold Cosby accountable for what he did to me,” she said in a statement. “Although it occurred long ago, I still live with the fear, pain and shame every day of my life.”The suit comes more than three months after Mr. Cosby, 84, was freed from prison in Pennsylvania where he was serving a three-to-10-year prison sentence after being convicted of sexually assaulting another woman, Andrea Constand. The 2018 conviction was overturned by the state’s Supreme Court on due process grounds.In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Cosby, Andrew Wyatt, denied Ms. Bernard’s allegations and attacked the so-called “look back” reforms.“These look back provisions are unconstitutional and they are a sheer violation of an individual’s Constitutional Rights and denies that individual of their Due Process,” he said in a statement. “This is just another attempt to abuse the legal process, by opening up the flood gates for people, who never presented an ounce of evidence, proof, truth and/or facts, in order to substantiate their alleged allegations.”The suit against Bill Cosby was based on a change in New Jersey law that expanded the statute of limitations governing lawsuits in cases involving allegations of sexual assault.Dominick Reuter/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Wyatt said that in 2015 Ms. Bernard had made a criminal complaint to the New Jersey authorities who decided against moving forward with the case. Lawyers for Ms. Bernard said she was told her complaint fell outside the criminal statute of limitations.New Jersey eliminated the criminal statute of limitations for most cases of sexual assault in 1996.More than 50 women have accused Mr. Cosby of a range of sexual assault and misconduct, including rape. Ms. Constand’s case was the only one that proceeded criminally and other women have said their efforts to sue Mr. Cosby on sexual assault grounds have been blocked by statutes of limitation.Ms. Bernard had lobbied for changes in California’s laws on sexual assault, joining legislative efforts by other women who had similarly accused Mr. Cosby. More