Source: WENN.com / WENN
An unidentified woman has come forward and accused the late Rick James of raping her when she was a teenager. According to the Los Angeles Times, the woman is now suing his estate for $50 million.
Back in 1979, the plaintiff was 15-years-old and living in a group home in Buffalo, New York, which is also James’ hometown. She alleges that one day James was there visiting one of the people who ran the group home and was introduced to the residents. She claims that after dinner he entered her room and raped her.
“He grabbed my hair and pushed my head into the pillow,” she said in legal documents according to The Buffalo News. “I tried to fight him off, but he told me to ‘shut up and quit moving or I’ll cut you.’”
The plaintiff said that as soon as she met James he made her feel uncomfortable.
“Almost immediately, Rick James was very suggestive and inappropriate towards me. He made me feel very uncomfortable,” reads an affidavit filled with legal documents.
She said she has suffered “physical, psychological and emotional injury” over the incident due to her trauma.
The woman filed the lawsuit agsinst the James Ambrose Johnson Jr. 1999 Trust, which is ran by his estate. She filed the lawsuit under the Child Victims Act, a law that was passed last year in New York that gives victims who couldn’t file charges due to the statute of limitations a second chance at justice. It gives victims an one-year time frame.
Rick James’ estate hasn’t commented on the lawsuit.
During the “Mary Jane” singer’s career he struggled with cocaine addiction and was accused of violent acts against women three times in his career. In 1993, he was convicted for holding a woman hostage for six days and while torturing her and making her perform sexual acts along with his girlfriend and later wife Tanya Hijazi in 1991. In 1994, he pleaded guilty in charges that he kidnapped and sexually assaulting a music label executive. He served two and a half years in prison. In 1998, he was accused of sexually assaulting another woman but the charges were dropped.
