{"id":7290,"date":"2025-08-07T22:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T22:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/kanye-john-legend-signing-snubs-will-feature-in-la-reid-assault-trial\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T22:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T22:07:08","slug":"kanye-john-legend-signing-snubs-will-feature-in-la-reid-assault-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/kanye-john-legend-signing-snubs-will-feature-in-la-reid-assault-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Kanye, John Legend Signing Snubs Will Feature In LA Reid Assault Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tA<\/span>s trial nears in the sexual assault case against legendary music executive Antonio \u201cL.A.\u201d Reid<\/strong>, a judge has ruled that former Arista A&R executive Drew Dixon<\/strong> can keep seeking damages over commissions she supposedly lost when Reid refused to sign Ye (formerly Kanye West) and John Legend to the label.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ruling on Thursday (Aug. 7) comes just one month before Dixon\u2019s civil claims against Reid are scheduled to go to trial in New York federal court. Dixon\u2019s 2023 lawsuit alleges that Reid \u2014 who headed up Epic, Island Def Jam and Arista over the course of a storied career \u2014 sexually harassed her repeatedly and then forcibly kissed and groped her twice in 2001.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tDixon says that in addition to making her \u201cdepressed and suicidal,\u201d Reid\u2019s alleged abuse cost her valuable professional opportunities. She claims that after she rejected Reid\u2019s sexual advances, he retaliated against her by refusing to sign two promising young artists she wanted to bring to Arista: Ye and Legend.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit alleges that Reid berated Dixon in front of Arista\u2019s entire A&R department about Ye\u2019s audition being a \u201cwaste of his time,\u201d and that he didn\u2019t even bother to show up for Legend\u2019s audition. Dixon says she lost out on hefty future commissions because of these signing snubs. Neither Ye nor Legend is accused of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

\n\tReid \u201cadamantly\u201d denies all of Dixon\u2019s claims and is scheduled to contest them before a jury starting Sept. 8. Ahead of trial, his lawyers had sought to limit Dixon\u2019s potential recovery by arguing in a so-called summary judgment motion that any damages over the Ye and Legend auditions are outside the statute of limitations.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Judge Jeannette A. Vargas refused in Thursday\u2019s order to bar these lost commissions from the upcoming trial. The judge says Dixon can keep pursing such damages, at least for now, under New York\u2019s Adult Survivors Act (ASA) \u2014 a law that created a one-year window for otherwise time-barred sexual assault claims to be brought in court.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDefendant is correct that, for a cause of action to be revived under ASA, it must be brought for an injury or condition suffered as a result of conduct which would constitute a sexual offense,\u201d writes Judge Vargas. \u201cIt does not follow from this, however, that damages are limited once a cause of action has been revived.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Russell<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe judge notes, however, that Dixon\u2019s summary judgment ruling is only considering the issue of the statute of limitations, and \u201cit may well be that plaintiff cannot recover lost commissions under any of the asserted causes of action.\u201d Thus, it remains to be seen whether Dixon will actually be able to win a money judgment for these lost signing fees at trial.<\/p>\n

\n\tReps for Dixon and Reid both did not return requests for comment on the decision.<\/p>\n

\n\tReid\u2019s public image has been shaky since 2017, when, during his tenure as head of Epic Record,s he was accused of sexually harassing a female assistant. He exited Epic but stayed in the music business, launching the HitCo label and later co-founding music collective Mega alongside Usher.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Reid has been represented in the Dixon lawsuit by powerhouse entertainment lawyer Shawn Holley<\/strong>, he\u2019s currently staring down the September trial without an attorney after falling behind on his legal bills and refusing to return Holley\u2019s calls.<\/p>\n

\n\tJudge Vargas is allowing Holley and her team to step away from the case due to this rift, but says Reid\u2019s Sept. 8 trial date is firm. That means Reid must either get a new lawyer before then, represent himself or be subjected to a default loss if he\u2019s a no-show.<\/p>\n

\n\tDixon is also among multiple women who\u2019ve accused Def Jam Recordings founder Russell Simmons<\/strong> of rape. Simmons has publicly accused Dixon of lying about the incident, leading to ongoing defamation litigation between the two.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As trial nears in the sexual assault case against legendary music executive Antonio \u201cL.A.\u201d Reid, a judge has ruled that former Arista A&R executive Drew Dixon can keep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[302,6608,3332,1627,6605,6609,6606,6607,342],"class_list":["post-7290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-assault","tag-feature","tag-john","tag-kanye","tag-legend","tag-reid","tag-signing","tag-snubs","tag-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7290","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=7290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}