Co-founder and former CEO of 300 Entertainment, Kevin Liles, has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit from a Jane Doe plaintiff, who has accused him of sexually harassing and assaulting her when he was an executive at Def Jam Recordings.
According to Rolling Stone, former Def Jam President Kevin Liles wants the lawsuit dismissed because he states the accusations against him are “patently false.” In February, the accuser filed a lawsuit against Liles, Universal Music Group, and Def Jam Records, claiming that the alleged sexual assault took place more than 20 years ago when she worked as his executive assistant.
She states that between 2000 and 2002, the executive sexually harassed her several times, and according to the lawsuit, Liles allegedly “pressed his body against [her] breasts” and “grabbed [her] on the buttocks.”
On April 8, Liles’s attorney, Krystal C. Durham, responded to the suit by saying that the plaintiff “offers zero factual bases for her salacious allegations.”
She stated that she gave no details regarding the alleged assaults. She points out that in the lawsuit, there were no specifics like dates, locations, or context to the alleged incidents.
“Plaintiff offers no detail whatsoever regarding the nature of the purported assault she suffered. She alleges that at unspecified times and in unspecified locations during a two-year window –- again, over twenty years ago -– Mr. Liles sexually harassed and assaulted her. She fails, however, to explain when these purported acts occurred, where in UMG’s offices they occurred, and identify a single person she reported this information to or who was present.”
The attorney also noted that the proposed motion to dismiss would also challenge the accuser’s right to file her lawsuit under the two-year lookback window afforded by New York City’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law. The window to file such a lawsuit expired in November 2023, months before she filed the suit against Liles.
UMG Recordings has also filed a motion to dismiss, stating that the label “is a music company, and the alleged conduct was indisputably not in furtherance of any business of UMGR.”
In Jane Doe’s lawsuit, she asserted that UMGR and Def Jam should also be held liable for the alleged abuse because they “enabled, permitted, directed, controlled, approved, managed, operated and ratified the manner in which Liles engaged with employees.”
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