Attorneys for the Madison Square Garden executive James Dolan are fighting back against a lawsuit alleging he pressured a masseuse into unwanted sex while his band was on tour with the Eagles, calling his accuser an “opportunist” who is “looking for a quick payday.”
In a motion filed Monday in federal court in Manhattan, Dolan's lawyers asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit, in which a woman named Kellye Croft claims Dolan forced her into “unlawful and unwanted sexual acts.” repeatedly during the 2013 tour.
Claiming the allegations were “completely fabricated”, Dolan's lawyers told the judge it was “an unfortunate truth that some men, because of their status, have been targeted by opportunists looking for a quick payout”.
“If this case were to proceed … the plaintiff would be exposed as such an opportunist and her claims would be flatly dismissed for the lies they are,” Dolan's lead attorney E. Dania Perry He wrote. “But this action should never reach this stage, as the plaintiff's complaint is wholly inadequate.”
Dolan is the majority owner/CEO of Madison Square Garden Entertainment, a live music giant that operates the famous New York arena in addition to Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall, the Las Vegas Sphere and other prominent venues.
Croft sued him in January, claiming she was hired to serve as a massage therapist Glen Frey during the 2013 tour, in which Dolan's band (JD & The Straight Shot) opened for the Eagles. She says she thought the job was the “opportunity of a lifetime” but quickly realized the real reason she was there: “Dolan was extremely demanding and was pressuring Ms. Croft into unwanted sex.”
The lawsuit also alleged that Dolan later facilitated an incident in which Croft was assaulted Harvey Weinsteinthe disgraced film producer whose multiple allegations of sexual assault helped spark the #MeToo movement in 2017. Dolan previously served as a director at The Weinstein Company, and the lawsuit claimed the two moguls were “close friends and business associates.”
In Monday's response, Dolan's lawyers took particular exception to the Weinstein allegations, calling them “outrageous and irrelevant” allegations designed to offset the flaws in the case: “This transparent reliance on headline-grabbing allegations, but legally baseless, liability charges – per association cannot save the plaintiff's case.”
Dolan's motion also argued that Weinstein's inclusion was actually a “fatal” weakness in one part of the case. They claimed that The Weinstein Company's bankruptcy proceedings led to a court ruling exonerating all former executives from allegations that they aided and abetted Weinstein's conduct — one of the claims made against Dolan in the complaint.
In a responding statement Wednesday, Croft's attorney Douglas Wigdor called Dolan's argument “disgraceful” and said his client had not participated in or benefited from Weinstein's bankruptcy, nor was he even informed of it.
“To somehow suggest that Dolan should get a 'get out of jail free' card for our client's alleged intentional acts of trafficking shows the lengths to which he is willing to go to avoid having to defend her facts our case,” Wigdor wrote.
Separately on Monday, lawyers for music executive-owned companies Irving Azoff they also filed their own answer on the case. While the lawsuit focused primarily on Dolan's alleged conduct, it also accused Azoff Company of violating federal sex-trafficking laws by “facilitating Dolan's conduct.”
In their motion, Azoff's attorneys demanded not only that the claims be dismissed, but also that Croft and her attorneys be subject to legal sanctions for filing “frivolous and vexatious” allegations without factual evidence to support them.
“As explained to plaintiff's counsel prior to filing suit, the Azoff entities have never engaged in any sex-trafficking enterprise, and the complaint does not allege a single fact reasonably or remotely suggesting otherwise,” the Azoff Company's attorney wrote. Daniel Petrocelli.
“The decision of the plaintiff and her counsel to include [such claims] in federal request no
diligence or investigation in order to publicly and falsely accuse the Azoff Entities of heinous, illegal conduct fully warrants sanctions.”
In one part of Croft's complaint, her lawyers included a photo of Dolan, Azoff and Weinstein standing together in 2015, saying “these men were close to each other and therefore almost certainly knew details of each other's personal lives ».
But in Monday's motion to dismiss the case and sanction Croft's lawyers, Azoff's lawyers called Weinstein's inclusion in the complaint an “unwarranted and pointless” tactic designed to prove “guilt by association” in the absence of any actual evidence.
“Grabbing at straws, plaintiff attempts to connect Weinstein to the Azoff entities with a photo of Dolan, Weinstein and Irving Azoff at an advertising trade conference in 2015,” Petrocelli wrote. “An award of reasonable attorneys' fees and costs to the Azoff entities in bringing this motion will prevent plaintiff's counsel from asserting such baseless, bad faith allegations in the future.”
In a statement Wednesday, Croft's attorney, Wigdor, called those arguments “meritless” and reiterated the allegations against Azoff's companies: “We look forward to dismissing these motions and moving forward with this trial.”
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