{"id":7785,"date":"2025-09-11T22:30:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T22:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/smokey-robinson-sex-assault-lawsuit-accusers-cant-be-named-yet-judge\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T22:30:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T22:30:32","slug":"smokey-robinson-sex-assault-lawsuit-accusers-cant-be-named-yet-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/smokey-robinson-sex-assault-lawsuit-accusers-cant-be-named-yet-judge\/","title":{"rendered":"Smokey Robinson Sex Assault Lawsuit Accusers Can’t Be Named Yet: Judge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tA<\/span> judge ruled that the former housekeepers accusing Smokey Robinson of rape can stay anonymous at this stage of the lawsuit, which is scheduled to go to trial in 2027.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring a hearing in Los Angeles court on Thursday (Sept. 11), the 85-year-old Motown singer lost his bid to unmask four women who sued him for rape under \u201cJane Doe\u201d pseudonyms earlier this year. While Robinson knows the names of these women, who allege they were assaulted while working as his housekeepers, the singer and his lawyers are not currently allowed to reveal the women\u2019s identities to the public.<\/p>\n

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\n\tRobinson vehemently denies raping the women and has countersued them for defamation. His attorneys have also been trying to win the case in the court of public opinion \u2014 and say de-anonymizing them is key to that endeavor.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey want to make a very public situation out of this, and then they want to hide the ugly facts, the contradictory facts,\u201d Robinson\u2019s chief lawyer, Christopher Frost, <\/strong>told Judge Kevin C. Brazile on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrost said his team has learned information that bears on the credibility of the plaintiffs \u2014 including that two of them are sisters \u2014 and added it\u2019s not fair that he\u2019s unable to fully share these details with the public. But Judge Brazile was unconvinced.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor now, this early on in this case, I don\u2019t think their identities need to be revealed,\u201d said the judge. \u201cMaybe later\u2026 For now, let\u2019s just keep it status quo. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s going to stay that way throughout the whole litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe women\u2019s lawyers did not address the court during Thursday\u2019s hearing, but attorney John Harris<\/strong> told Billboard <\/em>in a statement afterward that they\u2019re \u201cvery pleased\u201d with the decision.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis ruling protects the privacy and safety of Jane Does one through four and ensures that survivors can continue to seek justice without fear of retribution or public exposure,\u201d said Harris. \u201cWe will continue to advocate vigorously on their behalf and ensure that their voices are heard when they have their day in court.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tJudge Brazile said he\u2019ll likely allow an exception to this rule of anonymity so that Robinson\u2019s lawyers can use the women\u2019s names on witness subpoenas. He also noted that the plaintiffs\u2019 identities will come out when the case goes to trial in October 2027.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 2027 trial date is new as of Thursday\u2019s hearing. Though two years seems far away, it\u2019s actually sooner than the three-year average wait time for trials in Judge Brazile\u2019s courtroom. The judge sped the timeline up slightly due to Robinson\u2019s advanced age \u2014 though Frost said the singer is \u201cin better shape than I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou say Mr. Robinson is in good health and that\u2019s great, but three years is a long time,\u201d Judge Brazile told Frost in explaining his decision to expedite the case.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe bitter legal fight began in May, when the former housekeepers filed a $50 million civil lawsuit claiming Robinson forced them to have oral and vaginal sex in his bedroom dozens of times between 2007 and 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe four Jane Does then made a police report to Los Angeles criminal authorities, followed by a fifth woman two months later. The Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department is still investigating the matter and has not filed any charges. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRobinson maintains that he never touched these women, and that they concocted false claims out of an \u201cextortionate scheme\u201d to win settlement money. While legal claims are shielded from defamation liability, Robinson\u2019s countersuit says the women and their lawyers also disparaged him at a press conference when the lawsuit was filed.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story was updated on Sept. 11 at 5:06 p.m. ET to add a statement from the plaintiffs\u2019 lawyer.<\/em><\/p>\n


\"Billboard
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A judge ruled that the former housekeepers accusing Smokey Robinson of rape can stay anonymous at this stage of the lawsuit, which is scheduled to go to trial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2044,302,423,303,2060,5825,461,5824],"class_list":["post-7785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-accusers","tag-assault","tag-judge","tag-lawsuit","tag-named","tag-robinson","tag-sex","tag-smokey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7785","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=7785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}