In August of 2021, a woman filed a lawsuit in New York against Bob Dylan, claiming that the singer sexually abused her in 1965, when she was 12 years old. The woman, named only as “J.C.,” stated in the suit that Dylan used “his status as a musician by grooming J.C. to gain her trust and to obtain control over her as part of his plan to sexually molest and abuse J.C.” When the claim went to court in January of this year, Dylan’s lawyers called it “a brazen shakedown masquerading as a lawsuit.” But as of yesterday, the claim has been withdrawn by the plaintiff.
Per a Billboard report, this comes a day after Dylan’s attorneys said she destroyed evidence surrounding the case, which they claimed “irretrievably” compromised the case.
“This case is over,” Dylan’s lead attorney Orin Snyder told Billboard. “It is outrageous that it was ever brought in the first place. We are pleased that the plaintiff has dropped this lawyer-driven sham and that the case has been dismissed with prejudice.”
The case had a lot of holes from the get-go, with the plaintiff alleging that the sexual abuse happened at the Chelsea Hotel between April and May of 1965. Dylan scholars and historians compared historical documents that showed Dylan was not in New York at the time. When the plaintiff changed her time frame to say that the alleged abuse happened in “early Spring,” the timeline was once again refuted this claim, stating that Dylan was not in New York for the specified amount of time that would have lined up with the plaintiff’s claim.
The plaintiff had fired her attorneys amid a request for evidence by Dylan’s representatives this month. The suit was spiraling backwards in the lead up to it being dropped and more details can be found in the initial Billboard report here.
