The woman who claimed Garth Brooks forcibly raped her in a Los Angeles hotel room in 2019 is slamming the country singer’s effort to get her sexual assault case dismissed in California.
In new court filings obtained by Rolling Stone, the Jane Roe plaintiff is asking a federal judge to reject Brooks’ argument that her highly graphic sexual assault lawsuit filed Oct. 3 in Los Angeles is “duplicative” of the defamation and extortion lawsuit he filed against Roe in Mississippi last September.
Lawyers for Jane Roe remain adamant her claims belong in California, where the alleged sexual misconduct took place. They claim Brooks and his legal team had no right to sue “without any notice or warning” in Mississippi on Sept. 13 while they were actively engaged in ongoing, seemingly cordial settlement discussions dating back to July.
“Brooks’ bad faith, sham action was nothing but a forum-shopping maneuver,” the lawyers claim in the new paperwork filed Friday. They say the Mississippi lawsuit was “meant to preempt” their client’s proposed California complaint and “deny her access” to California’s anti-SLAPP statute, a law that safeguards against frivolous claims designed to muzzle someone’s right to free speech. “Brooks raced to the courthouse to file first in Mississippi – a forum he believed would be more sympathetic to him than California in part because Mississippi does not have an anti-SLAPP law,” the lawyers argue.
In her lawsuit, Roe alleged Brooks raped her in May 2019 while she was working as his hair and makeup artist for a music industry event. She claimed Brooks, who is a foot taller and more than 100 pounds heavier than her, held her upside down at one point and “forcefully penetrated her.” Brooks denied this took place.
According to Roe, Brooks sexually assaulted her again during another trip to Los Angeles in October 2019. She alleged he groped her body and breasts and at one point was “holding his crotch” while propositioning her. The woman said she only managed to escape because he was running late and had people waiting for him. Brooks denied ever assaulting Roe.
Roe’s lawyers argue in the new filing that she deserves a California jury. “The primary relevant events took place in Los Angeles, California. Not a single act or event underlying any alleged cause of action by Brooks occurred in Mississippi,” their paperwork states.
The lawyers also blast Brooks for unmasking their client, using her real name, and including photos of her in their Mississippi-based filings after she filed her lawsuit in Los Angeles. They say that following Brooks’ “underhanded vindictive tactics,” their client filed her own motion to dismiss his Mississippi complaint. That case is now sealed. “This court should not reward Brooks for his bad faith ploys,” Roe’s lawyers state in their Friday filing, asking for a denial of his motion to dismiss.
Brooks’ lawyers did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment sent Monday.
In his preemptive Sept. 13 lawsuit in Mississippi, Brooks claimed he was the victim of an “ongoing attempted extortion.” He called the woman’s allegations “outrageous” and asked the court to declare they were false. In his dismissal motion in California, Brooks claimed he was the victim of “blackmail.”
“Roe asked Brooks for increasing amounts of financial assistance, which he eventually declined to provide, and she thereafter responded with false and outrageous allegations of sexual misconduct she claims occurred years ago,” his dismissal motion said. “Roe sought to extort Brooks by offering to refrain from publicly filing her false allegations in a lawsuit in exchange for a multimillion-dollar payment.”
A hearing on Brooks’ request to dismiss the California action was set for Dec. 9, but both sides have asked that it be pushed out a week, to Dec. 16. A judge has yet to rule.
In a prior statement, Brooks disputed Roe’s allegations. “For the last two months, I have been hassled to no end with threats, lies, and tragic tales of what my future would be if I did not write a check for many millions of dollars,” the country singer said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face.”