A former music video producer sued Russell Simmons on Tuesday, alleging that he raped her when she labored for Def Jam Recordings within the late Nineteen Nineties.

The girl, recognized within the grievance as Jane Doe, alleges that she went to Simmons’ Manhattan condominium to get his approval for a tough minimize of a video. Whereas there, she alleges that he made a “wrestling transfer,” pinned her down on his mattress, and proceeded to rape her.

“Ms. Doe rejected his advance and informed him to ‘get off’ and ‘cease’ a number of instances,” the lawsuit states. “She informed him she was ‘critical’ and she or he ‘meant it.’ However Ms. Doe was forcefully pinned, couldn’t transfer underneath his weight and Mr. Simmons wouldn’t take heed to her.”

Simmons was considered one of many highly effective males accused of sexual assault in 2017. After a number of ladies got here ahead with allegations towards him, he was compelled to step down from his roles at Def Jam and at his yoga life-style model. A 2020 documentary, “On the Report,” detailed the allegations of a number of accusers.

In keeping with the lawsuit, Jane Doe noticed a well-known sample.

“When Ms. Doe realized concerning the accounts of the opposite survivors, she was struck by how comparable they have been to her personal horrible expertise by the hands of Mr. Simmons,” the grievance states.

The go well with alleges that main as much as the assault, Simmons would additionally sexually harass the plaintiff in her workplace at work, shutting the door behind him, leaning over her and making sexual innuendos.

The plaintiff’s attorneys, Kenya Davis and Sigrid McCawley, stated Tuesday that their shopper’s profession was on the upswing earlier than the assault.

“She was happy with her contributions to the burgeoning musical style of hip hop, however her exhausting work and her profession in music was disrupted and derailed by Mr. Simmons, a wealthy and highly effective movie star whose wealth and affect allowed his abusive conduct to go unchallenged for many years,” they stated. “Now a profitable author and producer within the leisure trade, Jane Doe’s traumatic experiences with Simmons echo these of so many different ladies who he has preyed upon for many years.”

The go well with alleges that she was “ceaselessly modified” by the assault, that she suffered from dissociation, despair and nervousness, and that she turned in her discover at Def Jam shortly afterward.

She additionally suffered panic assaults and developed an consuming dysfunction, and had issue coping with heightened feelings in work settings. She left three jobs at manufacturing firms over a two-year interval, in keeping with the grievance.

In March 2023, she went to a yoga class and inadvertently discovered herself subsequent to Simmons. In keeping with the go well with, she was startled when he stated her identify, and she or he requested if it was OK to apply subsequent to him. He responded: “In fact. What, do you suppose I’m gonna attempt to fuck you?” the lawsuit states.

“Ms. Doe was horrified,” the grievance continues. “She realized not solely was he unapologetic in the direction of her personally, he didn’t recognize that the assault was fallacious.”

The lawsuit was filed underneath New York’s Grownup Survivors Act and the New York Metropolis Gender Motivated Violence Act, each of which adopted momentary “lookback home windows” to revive fits that in any other case could be outdoors the statute of limitations.

Jennifer Jarosik filed a rape lawsuit towards Simmons in federal courtroom in January 2018. That grievance was dropped a number of months later. One other accuser, recognized solely as Jane Doe, sued Simmons in state courtroom in Los Angeles in March 2018. A choose threw that case out in 2020 as a result of the allegation was barred by the state of limitations.

Simmons has apologized for being “inconsiderate and insensitive,” however has stated he was by no means violent. In a podcast interview final 12 months, Simmons acknowledged being in “compromising conditions,” however stated he had taken and handed 9 lie detector exams coping with the allegations of violent conduct.