The N.Y. law behind high-profile sexual assault cases
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2023
⏱️ 19 minutes
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Summary
Today, how a New York law briefly changed how survivors of sexual assault found justice, and the impact it’s had on the legal system.
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Over the past month, several sexual assault lawsuits have been filed in New York against high-profile celebrities such as hip-hop mogul Sean P. Diddy Combs, musician Axl Rose and actor Jamie Foxx. Some of the alleged abuse dates back decades, and survivors were only able to file these claims because of the Adult Survivors Act – a New York law that expired last week.
Style reporter Anne Branigin has been following the fallout from these cases and how this law briefly changed what justice looks like for survivors of sexual assault.
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| 0:00.0 | Over the past several weeks there have been a flurry of sexual assault lawsuits filed against big-name celebrities. |
| 0:10.0 | Music mogul Sean Diddy Combs, accused of sex trafficking and sexual assault and a lawsuit filed in federal court here in New York. |
| 0:20.4 | Oscar winning actor Jamie Fox is being sued for allegedly groping a woman at a Manhattan rooftop bar in 2015. |
| 0:29.0 | A penthouse model is now suing guns and roses frontman Axel Rose, accusing him of sexually |
| 0:35.0 | assaulting her in a New York City hotel room in 1989. |
| 0:39.0 | And the flood of complaints wasn't a coincidence. |
| 0:42.0 | These lawsuits have all been filed under a New York law called the |
| 0:45.8 | Adult Survivors Act. This law, which went into effect in 2022, gave sexual assault survivors one year to file a civil lawsuit no matter when the alleged |
| 0:56.2 | assault happened. |
| 0:57.8 | And Branigan has been reporting on this for the post. |
| 1:00.8 | This is all part of the larger correction that we've seen in the legal system to try to represent sort of the needs of survivors a bit more. |
| 1:13.0 | What we see with survivors quite often is that |
| 1:17.0 | it can take a long time to bring a case forward |
| 1:20.0 | and that's for a lot of reasons. |
| 1:22.0 | And so this was, you know, a piece of reasons. And so this was a piece of legislation that allowed folks who maybe, you know, didn't have the |
| 1:29.3 | vocabulary for what they're experiencing or who just took years to reckon with what |
| 1:34.7 | happened it gave them a legal remedy that they didn't have before. |
| 1:38.8 | The Adult Survivors Act has been a big deal. |
| 1:42.4 | Thousands of people have used it to sue their The Adult Survivors Act has been a big deal. |
| 1:42.8 | Thousands of people have used it to sue their alleged abusers. |
| 1:46.2 | But the reason we saw so many of these cases being filed recently |
| 1:50.0 | is because the Adult Survivors Act expired last week. |
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