The iconic folk singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has been accused of plying a 12 year old girl with drugs and alcohol before sexually abusing her multiple times in 1965.
A new lawsuit filed gainst 80-year-old Dylan on Friday, alleges that the now a 68-year-old victim, identified only as JC, has been left “psychologically damaged.”
It claims that the singer who was either 23 or 24 at the time, had groomed her over a period six weeks between April and May 1965.
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Dylan’s spokesman said “the 56-year-old claim is untrue and will be vigorously defended”.
The Guardian reports: The suit, filed late Friday on behalf of JC, now a 68-year-old woman living in Greenwich, Connecticut, alleges that Dylan, then 23 or 24 years old, “exploited his status as a musician by grooming JC to gain her trust and to obtain control over her as part of his plan to sexually molest and abuse” her.
According to the complaint, Dylan established a “connection” with JC to “lower her inhibitions with the object of sexually abusing her, which he did, coupled with the provision of drugs, alcohol and threats of physical violence, leaving her emotionally scarred and psychologically damaged to this day”.
The suit alleges that Dylan, given name Robert Allen Zimmerman, abused the plaintiff multiple times, with some incidents taking place at the famed Chelsea hotel in Manhattan. According to the complaint, the emotional effects of the abuse on JC included depression, humiliation and anxiety that “are of a permanent and lasting natures and have incapacitated plaintiff from attending her regular activities”.
JC is seeking unspecified damages and a jury trial for allegations of assault, battery, false imprisonment and infliction of emotional distress whose aftermath has led her to seek medical treatment on multiple occasions.
A spokesman for Dylan, now 80, told the Guardian on Monday that “the 56-year-old claim is untrue and will be vigorously defended”.
The lawsuit comes on the final day of the New York State’s Child Victim Act look-back window, which closed Saturday, 14 August. The measure had offered reprieve for adults time-barred from filing civil suits for abuse suffered as children.
