Nigel Lythgoe Tried to Use Sean Combs Ruling to Unmask Accuser. It Didn’t Work
A lawyer for American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe cited one of Sean Combs’ sexual assault cases at a tense court hearing Wednesday as she tried to convince a Los Angeles County judge that the Jane Doe suing Lythgoe for an alleged 2016 assault should be forced to proceed with her real name. The effort failed.
The judge said the Combs ruling — issued hours after the hearing — was outside California’s jurisdiction and “not persuasive” considering California case law employs a more “liberal protection of privacy” when it comes to alleged victims of sexual assault. “The court finds that plaintiff is entitled to maintain her privacy, and she has alleged a sufficient basis for anonymity,” Judge Lisa K. Sepe-Wiesenfeld wrote in her ruling.
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In the Combs case referenced by Lythgoe’s lawyer, a federal judge ruled last February that the Jane Doe who alleges Combs and two other men gang raped her in 2003 – when she was 17 years old – won’t be allowed to maintain her anonymity if her case survives a dismissal motion from Combs and she proceeds to trial.
At the Wednesday hearing, Lythgoe’s lawyer Karen Ephraim argued that the Doe v. Combs case, filed in the Southern District of New York, was “very much relevant and should be relied upon.” Ephraim argued that the stringent, “10-factor” test that was applied in the Combs decision has also been used in federal courts in California. (In the Combs ruling, the judge sided with the embattled music mogul on multiple factors. On one, the judge found that while Doe claimed she would suffer “trauma” if forced to reveal her identity, she did not provide any “corroboration from medical professionals.”)
In the Lythgoe case, the Jane Doe alleges Lythgoe forcibly kissed and penetrated her with his fingers in the backseat of a chauffeur-driven car after they met at a hotel bar in Beverly Hills. She was one of four women to anonymously sue Lythgoe for sexual assault after Paula Abdul filed an explosive lawsuit last December claiming Lythgoe attacked her in an elevator during one of American Idol’s initial seasons. Abdul alleged Lythgoe shoved her against the elevator wall, forcibly kissed her and groped her breasts and genitals. Lythgoe has denied any wrongdoing, calling the allegations “false, despicable, intolerable, and life-changing.”
When it was her turn to speak Wednesday, Jane Doe’s lawyer argued that California has a clear record of “emphasizing” privacy rights for sexual assault victims. “The Ninth Circuit in California recognizes that sexual assault cases are of such a personal and intimate nature that there’s a very strong privacy interest for alleged victims. In addition to the intimate details, there’s a stigma that gets attached to victims that can be carried on throughout one’s life. Protecting against that stigma of being known as a sexual assault victim is an important interest we should protect,” Doe’s lawyer Melissa Eubanks argued. The lawyer then cited a different celebrity case to support her argument. She said that a federal court in California allowed a woman to remain anonymous as she sued NBA basketball star Derrick Rose for rape in 2016. (A jury ultimately found Rose not liable.)
Eubanks said that Lythgoe, like Rose, is famous and has fans. “And in Doe v. Rose, the federal district court said that when a defendant is a well-known public figure, the fear that the [accuser] could be targeted and victimized by supporters of the defendant is clearly heightened.”
Lythgoe’s lawyer tried to counter that Rose had much more “vocal” and rowdy fans. She said there’s no evidence Lythgoe has a “rabid fan following who’s going to potentially retaliate” against Doe. “Any fan can be vocal and ugly,” the judge shot back. “You know as well as I do, you don’t need a ‘rabid’ following. You need the wrong person who attaches to Mr. Lythgoe and thinks they’re doing something for his benefit. It could be random and one person.”
Judge Sepe-Wiesenfeld also heard argument from Lythgoe’s lawyer that the TV producer needs a “level playing field” to find potential witnesses. The lawyer said other accusers stepped forward after Abdul’s lawsuit “publicized” her claim, but now Lythgoe “doesn’t get that same benefit” of using Jane Doe’s name to find possible defense witnesses with “relevant information.”
“When names are out there and made public, especially in cases involving a public figure like Mr. Lythgoe, it’s more likely that witnesses may come out of the woodwork,” Ephraim argued. The lawyer added that it also can be difficult to convince witnesses to cooperate if they have to sign a protective order regarding a plaintiff’s identity. She said most people view such orders as intimidating “non-disclosure agreements,” making them a “real disincentive to a witness.”
“I’m not sure about that,” the judge responded. “Someone may actually think that is a better way of discussing something as sensitive as [sexual assault].”
With her final ruling, Judge Sepe-Wisenfeld said she was “not convinced that potential witnesses will not come forward simply because plaintiff’s name is not publicized.” She said it was Lythgoe’s responsibility to “contact witnesses to mount a defense, not for witnesses to find him after reading a news article about the account.”
In a related ruling last month, Judge Sepe-Wisenfeld decided that a different Jane Doe suing Lythgoe for an alleged assault outside his residence in 2018 also had the right to proceed anonymously. “Defendant is a television and film director, producer, and television personality. It is reasonable to conclude that plaintiff may be subject to harm and retaliation should her name be publicly revealed,” the judge wrote in that ruling.
Back in July, Lythgoe scored a victory against his other two Jane Doe accusers when a judge in Van Nuys, California, dismissed him from the lawsuit that was filed by the women who were contestants on his 2003 reality competition show All American Girl. The women alleged Lythgoe forcibly groped and kissed them, but the judge on that case ruled they only had standing to sue corporate defendants with their decades-old claims, not Lythgoe himself.
“Today was a good day. We’ve always said that these claims were meritless and now the court has agreed. I hope and expect that this will be the first of many similar wins as I continue to fight to clear my name,” Lythgoe said in a statement after the ruling.
In her separate case filed in downtown Los Angeles, Abdul sued Lythgoe along with the production companies behind American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. She has since settled with the production companies and is due to face Lythgoe at a trial set for next August.
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