The former Def Jam executive who claims Russell Simmons pinned her down and raped her inside his Manhattan apartment in the mid-1990s has revived her lawsuit against the music mogul after it was derailed by a federal judge last month.
The Jane Doe plaintiff refiled her complaint in New York state court Thursday. A California resident, she originally brought her action in federal court, where cases generally move at a faster pace. But Simmons objected, claiming he’s now a “stateless” American citizen living on a permanent Indonesian retirement visa at the Bali resort he co-owns. In a Feb. 11 ruling, U.S. District Judge John Koeltl sided with Simmons and dismissed Doe’s lawsuit on the basis it didn’t meet the requirement of having parties in different U.S. states.
While Simmons’ lawyer praised Judge Koeltl’s decision as a victory, Jane Doe and her lawyer Kenya Davis say it was only a procedural setback. They expect no issue pursuing her claims in state court based on the principle that states have the authority to prosecute alleged crimes that happened within their geographic boundaries.
“I filed this case to force Russell to accept he was wrong, that he caused pain,” Jane Doe tells Rolling Stone. “Forced sex is against the law. Stop saying the rules are different now; it was wrong then too. I thought the justice system would hold him accountable, and here we are talking about personal jurisdiction and domicile. The legal gamesmanship he’s playing to avoid accountability just makes me want to push harder.”
When Jane Doe first filed her lawsuit last year, she joined more than 20 women who already had stepped forward to accuse Simmons of sexual assault or harassment. Several reached confidential settlements with Simmons but are now suing him with claims he reneged on the agreements.
“Russell Simmons has a consistent pattern of doing anything and everything to dodge accountability, like failing to make agreed settlement payments to women and fleeing to Bali to try to sidestep legal action in the United States,” Davis tells Rolling Stone. “Meanwhile, he avails himself of the U.S. courts when it serves him and his businesses. With today’s filing, we are telling Mr. Simmons in no uncertain terms: ‘You can no longer run from justice. The time to answer for your conduct is now.’” (When reached for comment, Simmons’ lawyer, David Fish, tells Rolling Stone, “Like the dismissed federal action, there will be numerous grounds to dismiss this case as well.”)
With her re-filed lawsuit, Jane Doe alleges she was working for Simmons as the head of Def Jam’s film and video production department in the mid 1990s when she visited his apartment one night to deliver a rough cut of a project. She claims Simmons “performed a wrestling move” and “forcefully pinned” her down while ignoring her protests. She alleges Simmons raped her and then subsequently climbed into a bath and tried to engage her in a discussion about work. She says the incident left her in a state of “debilitating anxiety” and severe depression that has had a lasting impact on her life and career.
Simmons, 67, has denied any wrongdoing. He claims he passed “nine lie detector tests” related to the slew of allegations. He’s also dismissed speculation that he fled the U.S. to avoid legal actions. “People saying that I somehow can’t come home, when I’m there all the time, wears on you,” Simmons said in an interview with AllHipHop.com. “It wears on me after a while to keep hearing the same narrative, which is false. I’m always in LA, I’m always in New York and Miami.”
Beyond Jane Doe’s revived complaint, Simmons also is facing an ongoing lawsuit from Drew Dixon, a former A&R at Def Jam who sued Simmons for defamation in February 2024. In her lawsuit, Dixon said Simmons unlawfully branded her a liar when he suggested during an interview that she concocted her claim that he sexually assaulted her in 1995.
Simmons also faces additional litigation from at least six other accusers who claim the Def Jam co-founder violated the terms of their confidential settlements, failing to pay them a combined total of more than $11 million. The women with claims filed in New York state court since October are Toni Sallie, Tina Klein-Baker, Alexia Jones, Sherri Abernathy, Sil Lai Abrams and Wendy Franco.
In her filings, Sallie said Simmons agreed to pay her $3 million but has only paid $30,000 so far. Sallie and Klein-Baker were featured in a 2017 New York Times investigation titled “Music Mogul Russell Simmons Is Accused of Rape by 3 Women” that also featured Dixon. In the piece, Salli said she met Simmons in 1987 when she was a music journalist. She claimed Simmons raped her after luring her to his apartment with a lie that he was hosting a party.
Baker, a singer who performed backup gigs for Madonna and Bruce Springsteen, said Simmons raped her in the early 1990s while serving as her manager. Baker alleges Simmons agreed to pay her $5 million and has only paid $50,000 so far.
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