Atlanta rapper T.I., born Clifford Harris, was sued Tuesday along with his wife Tameka Harris, known as Tiny, by a woman who accused the couple of drugging and raping her after she married her around 2005 met in a nightclub in Los Angeles.
In the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court under California's Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act, which extended the statute of limitations for sexual abuse lawsuits, the woman is identified only as Jane Doe, a U.S. Air Force veteran, she was 22 or 23 years old at the time. She previously spoke about the alleged assault and its aftermath in an interview with The New York Times in 2021, although she wished to remain anonymous to protect her family.
In her lawsuit, the woman accuses Mr. Harris, 43, and Ms. Harris, 48, of sexual assault, battery, sexual assault, negligence, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress and is seeking damages.
In a statement from the couple's attorney, Andrew B. Brettler, Mr. and Mrs. Harris denied the allegations and called the civil lawsuit a shock. “This plaintiff has been threatening to file this lawsuit for three years,” the statement said. “For three years we have emphatically and categorically rejected these allegations. For three years we have maintained our innocence and refused to pay these extortionate demands for things we did not do.”
They added: “We are innocent of these false allegations, we will not be defeated and we look forward to our day in court.”
Prosecutors in Los Angeles had previously declined to file criminal charges against the Harrises over the incident, citing the statute of limitations. “Without evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence, the case is dismissed based on its expiration,” Los Angeles County authorities wrote in a motion to evaluate the charges filed in September 2021.
This investigation came as numerous allegations of sexual abuse and assault against the couple surfaced in news reports and on social media. An attorney contacted law enforcement in California and Georgia requesting criminal investigations on behalf of 11 people who said they were victims of the Harris family or members of their entourage. At least four women accused the celebrity couple of drugging and sexually abusing them.
The couple denied the allegations at the time and no charges were ever filed.
In her lawsuit, the military veteran states that she was invited with a friend to the VIP section of a Los Angeles club by a member of the couple's entourage, a man named Caviar, to meet TI and Tiny, a member of the R&B group Xscape, to meet . Ms. Harris, who was not yet married to TI at the time, offered the two women a taste of a drink and they both sipped it, the lawsuit says.
The two women were then invited, along with others, to a hotel room where they believed the party would continue; The military veteran traveled there with the celebrity couple and her friend rode with Caviar.
At the hotel, the lawsuit says the other guests were soon asked to leave and the veteran was left alone with the couple, who showered with her and began massaging her when she began to feel “extremely dizzy and feeling dazed” towards the suit. “The plaintiff was able to recognize that she was experiencing something serious and distressing that was not a symptom of typical alcohol consumption or less alcohol consumption.”
The woman says she remembers being penetrated by Mr. Harris's toes and telling him “no” before she started vomiting and “passed out until the next morning,” the lawsuit says. The woman woke up in pain, the lawsuit says, and returned to her friend, who remained separated from her after leaving the club.
In interviews with The Times in 2021, both women said they immediately told each other their memories of the previous night. Another longtime friend of the veteran, who spoke to her a few days after the events, confirmed in an interview that the veteran had described the hotel experience as a nonconsensual act in which she was drugged and did not deviate from that account When she did this they discussed it in later years.
“Even after all these years, the embarrassment, shame and depression are still present,” Rodney S. Diggs, an attorney for the woman, said in a statement Wednesday. “Silencing women silences justice. My client will no longer remain silent; We now demand justice for her and everyone who has been similarly injured.”