Bob Dylan prosecuted for sexual assault of a minor in 1965
The singer is accused of having “abused his status as a musician to supply alcohol and drugs” to a 12-year-old girl, “and to sexually assault her on several occasions”.
Image d’illustration.
AFP
Bob Dylan is being sued in New York City court by a woman who claims the singer sexually assaulted him almost 60 years ago, when she was 12. The complaint filed on Friday claims that Bob Dylan assaulted the complainant, of whom only the initials JC are mentioned, over a six-week period between April and May 1965.
The singer “abused his status as a musician to provide alcohol and drugs to JC, and to sexually assault him on several occasions”, supports the complaint which also accuses Bob Dylan of having physically threatened the young girl. The amount of damages claimed is not specified therein.
Some of the alleged assaults allegedly took place in Bob Dylan’s New York apartment in the notorious Chelsea Hotel, according to the complaint.
An agent for Bob Dylan did not immediately respond to AFP’s requests. In a statement to the USA Today daily, its spokesperson said that “the 56-year-old accusation is false and will be vigorously opposed.”
Just before the deadline
The complainant claims that Dylan caused her “serious psychological damage and emotional trauma”.
The complaint was filed a day ahead of a deadline under a New York state law that allows victims of sexual abuse to prosecute their alleged abusers, regardless of when the act was allegedly committed. Last week, a plaintiff in the case involving late financier Jeffrey Epstein used the law to file a lawsuit against Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth II’s second son, for alleged sexual assault.
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 for “having created new poetic expressions in the great American tradition of song”, Bob Dylan is considered the greatest singer-songwriter of all time. Among his most famous songs are “Blowin ‘in the Wind”, “The Times They Are a-Changin'”, or “Like A Rolling Stone”. The 80-year-old artist first hit the New York folk scene in the early 1960s and has sold over 125 million albums worldwide.
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