Smokey Robinson denies ‘ugly’ sexual assault allegations
Motown legend Smokey Robinson has denied allegations of sexual assault that had been made by a number of former staff.
In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, 4 feminine housekeepers accused the singer-songwriter of sexual battery together with rape, plus false imprisonment and various labour violations.
In a press release to the BBC, Robinson’s lawyer Christopher Frost referred to as the allegations “vile” and “false”.
“As this case progresses, the proof (the essential factor that guides us) will present that that is merely an unpleasant methodology of making an attempt to extract cash from an 85-year-old American icon – $50 million, to be precise,” he stated.
Robinson was Motown’s first hitmaker, writing primary hits like Mary Wells’ My Man and the Temptations’ My Lady.
He was each a expertise scout for the report label and one among its most outstanding recording artists in his personal proper, identified for songs like Tracks of My Tears, Store Round and Tears of a Clown.
He has spots in each the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame and the Songwriters Halls of Fame, and claims to have credit on greater than 4,000 songs.
His second spouse, Frances, was additionally named in Tuesday’s lawsuit, which claimed she contributed to a hostile work surroundings and didn’t cease Robinson’s alleged sexual misconduct.
The ladies are suing beneath the pseudonyms Jane Doe 1, 2, 3 and 4, as a result of sexual misconduct allegations, together with rape, being levelled in opposition to the musician.
Within the 27-page lawsuit they element a number of incidents courting again to 2006 and allege they had been pressured into intercourse.
All 4 girls, who’re of Hispanic descent, stated that they had not come ahead till now as a result of they feared shedding their livelihood, familial reprisal or embarrassment. Some had been involved the allegations might have an effect on their immigration standing.
They’re looking for not less than $50m in damages and a jury trial.
No police reviews or prison prices have been filed in opposition to the musician.
The ladies’s attorneys held a press convention on Tuesday, accusing Robinson of being a “serial and sick rapist” who “have to be stopped”.
This drew the ire of the Robinson’s authorized workforce, who referred to as it a “weird” try “to enlist the general public as an unwitting participant within the media circus they’re making an attempt to create”.
“We may have extra to say within the coming days as we make our authorized response, and in time Mr Robinson will reply in his personal phrases,” Mr Frost stated.
“We ask anybody following this case to order judgment because the proof involves gentle and all of the precise information of the case unfold.
“We can be asking the Courtroom to dismiss the lawsuit. We can even be asking the Courtroom to deal with that of their statements to the press about Mr Robinson, the plaintiff’s attorneys have reached past the bounds of liberties that even attorneys are usually allowed on this context.”
