{"id":612,"date":"2024-05-06T21:58:22","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T21:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/tommy-lee-wins-ruling-in-2003-helicopter-sexual-assault-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2024-05-19T16:48:11","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T16:48:11","slug":"tommy-lee-wins-ruling-in-2003-helicopter-sexual-assault-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/tommy-lee-wins-ruling-in-2003-helicopter-sexual-assault-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy Lee Wins Ruling in 2003 Helicopter Sexual Assault Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A Los Angeles judge has dismissed a lawsuit<\/a> accusing M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce drummer Tommy Lee of sexually assaulting a woman in a helicopter in 2003, ruling that her case was filed too late.<\/p>\n

The case against Lee, launched last year by an anonymous Jane Doe accuser, was filed under a newly enacted California law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for years-old sexual assaults<\/a> \u2013 one of several such laws passed around the country in recent years.<\/p>\n

But in a decision issued Monday, Judge Holly J. Fujie ruled that Lee\u2019s accuser had failed to show that Lee\u2019s alleged assault had been followed by any kind of \u201ccover-up\u201d \u2013 a key requirement under the provision she cited.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court finds that plaintiff has not pled facts sufficient to support the theory of the necessary \u2018cover up\u2019 because plaintiff has not asserted facts evidencing defendants\u2019 concerted effort to hide evidence relating to sexual assault,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cPlaintiff instead makes vague allegations that the court finds insufficient to support the revival of a claim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the ruling is a setback for Lee\u2019s accuser, the case is not yet over. The judge gave her and her attorneys 20 days to file an updated version of her complaint if she has additional information that would fix the flaws in her case. Her attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

In her December complaint, the Jane Doe plaintiff claimed she had been \u201clured under false pretenses\u201d by Lee\u2019s personal helicopter pilot into taking a ride from San Diego to Los Angeles in February 2003. Once onboard, she claimed that Lee and the pilot \u201cconsumed several alcoholic beverages, smoked marijuana, and snorted cocaine\u201d before the rock star assaulted her.<\/p>\n

\u201cTommy Lee then proceeded to sexually assault plaintiff by forcibly groping, kissing, penetrating her with his fingers, and attempting to force her to perform oral copulation,\u201d her lawyers wrote. \u201cAs a result of Tommy Lee\u2019s sexual assault, Plaintiff has suffered severe emotional, physical, and psychological distress.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case, over an incident that allegedly occurred more than two decades ago, was filed under the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act \u2013 a California law that created a three-year window starting last year for alleged survivors to file sexual assault lawsuits that would normally be barred by the statute of limitations.<\/p>\n

The case against Lee was one of many cases filed during the \u201clook-back windows\u201d created by similar statutes, including New York\u2019s Adult Survivors Act. Just before that law expired in November, a flood of years-old abuse cases hit the courts, most notably against Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs.<\/p>\n

But such laws have strict requirements. In the case of the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act, an alleged victim must show that the defendant \u201cengaged in a cover up or attempted a cover up,\u201d meaning a \u201cconcerted effort to hide evidence relating to a sexual assault or other inappropriate conduct\u201d or conduct that \u201cincentivizes individuals to remain silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her complaint, Lee\u2019s accuser claimed that the drummer and other defendants \u201cengaged in a concerted effort to prevent information or evidence of such sexual assaults from being made public or disclosed to anyone.\u201d But in her ruling on Monday, Judge Fujie said that simply spelling out the statute\u2019s requirement was not enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese allegations are conclusory in nature and do not allege specific actions directed to plaintiff,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cAs such, plaintiff\u2019s action as alleged is effectively time-barred.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement to Billboard<\/em>, Lee\u2019s attorney Sasha Frid said: \u201cWe applaud the court\u2019s decision.\u00a0The court got it right in finding that the plaintiff cannot assert a claim against Tommy Lee.\u00a0From the outset, Mr. Lee has vehemently denied these false and bogus accusations.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Los Angeles judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce drummer Tommy Lee of sexually assaulting a woman in a helicopter in 2003, ruling that her case […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[302,883,303,881,686,301,880,882],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-assault","tag-helicopter","tag-lawsuit","tag-lee","tag-ruling","tag-sexual","tag-tommy","tag-wins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612","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=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":865,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions\/865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}