A trickle of high-profile sexual assault lawsuits making their way through New York civil courts is likely to escalate into an avalanche in the coming months due to a new one-year window for overdue claims.
Some bold names from the worlds of art, finance and politics have already been involved, including Donald Trump and banker Leon Black. A broad piece of legislation, New York’s Adult Survivors Law, allows adult survivors to sue alleged abusers or their property, as well as companies and institutions that have permitted conduct by ignoring or favoring an environment that has allowed assaults occurred, to be held financially responsible. The number of complaints that will be filed is not known.
But under a previous window that allowed child survivors at the time of the alleged crashes to file claims beyond the statute of limitations, as many as 11,000 claims were filed over the course of two years.
Since the retroactive bill was introduced on Thanksgiving, several notable complaints have already been filed. Leon Black, the billionaire co-founder of private equity firm Apollo, was accused by Cheri Pierson of raping her two decades ago at the Manhattan mansion of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein’s estate is named as a defendant. That case adds to a separate civil suit by Guzel Ganieva, who accused Black of falsely claiming she tried to extort money from him after accusing him of rape.
