{"id":4164,"date":"2025-02-13T20:21:19","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T20:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/russell-simmons-beats-rape-lawsuit-because-he-lives-in-indonesia\/"},"modified":"2025-02-13T20:21:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T20:21:19","slug":"russell-simmons-beats-rape-lawsuit-because-he-lives-in-indonesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/russell-simmons-beats-rape-lawsuit-because-he-lives-in-indonesia\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell Simmons Beats Rape Lawsuit Because He Lives In Indonesia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tA Manhattan federal judge has tossed out a sexual assault lawsuit against Russell Simmons<\/strong> on grounds that he now lives in Indonesia, but legal problems still abound for the Def Jam co-founder.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a decision issued Tuesday, Judge John Koeltl<\/strong> ruled that Simmons had shown by \u201cclear and convincing evidence\u201d that he is now a permanent resident of the Indonesian island of Bali, meaning his federal court lacked required form of jurisdiction to hear the case.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ruling is a setback for the unnamed Jane Doe plaintiff, who sued Simmons last year<\/a> over accusations that he raped her in the 1990s while she served as an executive at Def Jam. But the case can likely be re-filed in state court, where it would potentially not face the same issues.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to Billboard <\/em>on Thursday, her attorneys vowed to do so \u2013 claiming Simmons was trying to \u201cdodge accountability for his reprehensible behavior and escape litigation on procedural grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFrom the beginning of this case, Simmons has claimed to be a stateless citizen domiciled in Bali, despite building his life and career in New York and taking advantage of his clear ties to the state when it benefits him,\u201d said Kenya Davis<\/strong>, a lawyer at the firm Boies Schiller Flexner. \u201cOur plaintiff is not deterred by this gamesmanship. We respect the judge\u2019s decision, and we will see Mr. Simmons in New York state court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his own statement, an attorney for Simmons praised the judge\u2019s decision to dismiss the case: \u201cOur justice system is based on rules and procedures,\u201d said David Fish<\/strong> an attorney at the law firm Romano Law. \u201cWe are pleased that the court followed the rules of civil procedure and case law related to who can be brought into court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about whether the case would continue in state court, Fish said: \u201cI can\u2019t predict what plaintiff\u2019s counsel will do going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSimmons, who founded Def Jam Recordings in 1984 and later built a formidable hip hop empire, has faced a slew of abuse allegations since 2017 \u2014 first in an investigative article<\/a> by the New York Times<\/em>, then in a 2020 documentary film that featured interviews with numerous alleged victims.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast year, Simmons was hit with two lawsuits over such claims. The first came from the Jane Doe<\/a> at the center of this week\u2019s ruling, who says that she was serving as a successful music video producer when she was \u201csexually harassed, assaulted, sexually battered, and raped by her boss.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe other case came from Drew Dixon<\/strong>, a former A&R at Def Jam who accused Simmons of rape in both the Times<\/em> article and the documentary. In her February 2024 lawsuit, Dixon accused Simmons of defaming her by suggesting during an interview that she was lying about the incident.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat case remains pending. Simmons had moved to dismiss Dixon\u2019s lawsuit at the outset on free speech grounds, but that request was denied by a judge last week, sending the case toward more litigation and an eventual trial.<\/p>\n

\n\tSimmons also faces additional litigation from three other accusers \u2014 Tina Klein-Baker, Toni Sallie and Alexia Norton Jones \u2013 who alleged in New York court filings last month that the hip hop mogul had reneged on confidential settlements that separately required him to pay them a total of nearly $8 million.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Manhattan federal judge has tossed out a sexual assault lawsuit against Russell Simmons on grounds that he now lives in Indonesia, but legal problems still abound for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1091,4630,303,1015,953,4014,4629],"class_list":["post-4164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-beats","tag-indonesia","tag-lawsuit","tag-lives","tag-rape","tag-russell","tag-simmons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}