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Mike Tyson’s lawyer expected to file appeal in rape civil case

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Mike Tyson’s lawyer expected to file appeal in rape civil case

Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions of alleged sexual abuse that may be offensive to some readers or painful to victims of sexual assault.

Like Mike Tyson is preparing to fight Jake PaulHis legal team is preparing to file a civil lawsuit in federal court accusing the former heavyweight champion of raping a woman more than 30 years ago.

While the first lawsuit was filed in January 2023, the latest development emerged in June, when the woman who said Tyson brutally raped and sexually assaulted her in the back of a limousine in the early 1990s told the court she had accidentally misrepresented the date of the alleged lawsuit. Assault, according to court records reviewed by USA TODAY Sports.

Tyson denied the allegations, according to court records. USA TODAY Sports attempted to ask Tyson about the case during a video interview with the boxer on Friday. But Tyson’s publicist, Joann Mignano, interrupted and said: “We’re not going to talk about that. Thank you. Next question.”

According to court records, the amended complaint filed on the woman’s behalf states that she was raped by Tyson on March 1, 1990, rather than March 1, 1991, as stated in the original complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. The woman is asking for $5 million, according to court records.

Tyson, 58, was convicted in 1992 of raping Desiree Washington, an 18-year-old Miss Black America beauty pageant contestant at the time of the attack. He spent three years in prison.

Her attorneys plan to file plea papers by Nov. 18 (three days after Tyson is scheduled to fight Paul at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas), according to a copy of an Oct. 3 letter from the woman’s attorney to the magistrate judge. case.

The woman suing Tyson filed the lawsuit under the Adult Survivors Act, which took effect in New York in May 2022 and allows alleged victims of sexual crimes whose statute of limitations has expired for one year to file a lawsuit.

The court rejected the request of the woman named Christi Pinto that her name not be disclosed. USA TODAY does not generally identify victims of alleged sexual crimes.

No hearing date has been set.

Darren Seilback, an attorney representing Pinto, declined to comment Monday. Pinto did not respond to requests for comment left with USA TODAY Sports via text message, voicemail, email and Facebook.

Daniel S.L. Rubin, the attorney representing Tyson, did not respond to voicemails and emails requesting comment from USA TODAY Sports.

How might this issue affect the case?

New York attorney Alan Sash, who said he represents plaintiffs and defendants in cases involving alleged sexual crimes but has no connection to this case, said the discrepancy in dates raises the question of credibility.

“The defendant will say, ‘Look, he’s inconsistent with his appointments, so maybe this never happened,'” Sash told USA TODAY Sports. “And the plaintiff will say: ‘This incident happened decades ago, so whether it was on a particular day in 1991 or 1992 is kind of irrelevant to the real issue of whether I was assaulted or not.’ ”

Sash also said he did not think the discrepancy in dates would have any impact on the plaintiff filing an amended complaint.

Effie Blassberger, a New York attorney with the firm Clayman Rosenberg Kirshner & Linder who is not involved in this case, said the problem with the incorrect date illustrates the difficulties in Adult Survivors Act cases for plaintiffs and defendants.

“Many of the plaintiffs we represent have extraordinary guilt because they were initially too afraid to report their assaults,” said Blassberger, who represented actress Julia Ormond in a civil lawsuit accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault in 1995. The ASA and similar revitalization laws then provide these victims with an opportunity to hold their abusers and their supporters accountable. In this case, which has passed thirty years, it is understandable why the date in the complaint is wrong, and this fact should not be wrong either. It undermines the plaintiff’s credibility.”

But Blassberger also addresses the “defendant’s perspective,” saying: “Not only has the tremendous amount of time that has passed since 1990 or 1991 affected the memories of witnesses and the preservation of evidence, but a year and a half after the case was filed, Mike Tyson is now on trial.” I am learning… the alleged attack took place on a different date.”

Why does Mike Tyson’s lawyer say he objects?

Rubin, Tyson’s attorney, initially said the boxer would accept the amended complaint if Pinto filed an affidavit “explaining the good faith basis for the alleged amendment,” according to a letter Rubin filed with the court.

The lawyer wrote that the objections stemmed from the later statements of two witnesses who stated in Pinto’s statement that “she reported the alleged rape several weeks after the alleged rape.”

“Both of these witnesses testified unequivocally that these reports were made to them shortly after March 1991,” Rubin wrote in his July 25 letter. Plaintiff admitted on multiple occasions that she continued to believe the date was 1991, including after her own statement in which she clearly stated that the alleged rape occurred on March 1, 1991.

“As a result of the newly obtained testimony and evidence, we must respectfully modify our position regarding Plaintiff’s request to amend the Complaint and assert our objection to any such amendment.”

What Christi Pinto said

Other than the date of the alleged attack, Pinto’s allegations have not changed since he filed the affidavit in December 2022.

He said he met Tyson at a dance club called Eylül’s in Albany, New York.

“My friend and I were hanging out with him and his limo driver,” he said in his statement. “Tyson told us about a party and asked us to join him. My friend was going to drop off his car and Tyson said he would come pick him up in a limo.

“I got into Tyson’s limousine to pick up my friend from his house. Tyson immediately started touching me and tried to kiss me. I told him no several times and asked him to stop, but he continued to attack me. “He then took off my pants and violently raped me.”

In the affidavit, Pinto stated that she was raped in the early 1990s.

In a later affidavit filed on October 2, he said: “When I first uncovered Mike Tyson’s rape and reported it to my lawyers, I told them I wasn’t sure of the year it occurred, but I knew it happened in 2015. The early 1990s.”

Citing the “serious psychological trauma” resulting from the rape, Pinto said it was difficult to remember the exact details of the rape and the facts surrounding it. But he said he knew it happened on March 1, his birthday, and was trying to pinpoint the year before filing the lawsuit. a federal complaint.

Pinto, who was taken into custody in April, testified that she was “sure” the rape occurred on March 1, 1991, according to the affidavit. But information his sister gave in a later statement made the date suspect, according to the affidavit. He appealed to the New York Supreme Court in December 2022 before the matter went to federal court.

“I am now certain that the rape occurred on March 1, 1990,” Pinto said.

Why is Christi Pinto suing now?

According to the complaint, Pinto said that weeks after the alleged rape, the owner of the nightclub where she met Tyson and the singer she spent time with that night asked whether Tyson had acted “inappropriately” towards her.

The complaint reads: “… but out of embarrassment and fear, the plaintiff told them no.”… Given Tyson’s wealth and fame, as well as his notorious aggression and violence, the plaintiff did not report the attack out of fear that it would bring it to the authorities. It will cause unwanted attention and further harm.”

In the following years, Tyson faced numerous allegations of rape and sexual assault from various women, the complaint notes.

In November 1990, a New York jury ruled that Tyson grabbed a woman’s breasts and buttocks at a dance club after she rejected his advances, according to the Washington Post and multiple other news outlets. The jury awarded him $100 in compensatory damages and denied punitive damages.

A second woman said Tyson grabbed her buttocks while dancing that same night, according to the New York Times.

In 1995, Tyson settled a sexual assault lawsuit filed in 1988 by Phyllis Polaner, who worked as a publicist for Tyson’s first wife, Robin Givens, according to the New York Times.

Tyson, who was released on parole in 1994 after serving three years in prison for rape in Washington, was accused of rape by a woman in California and a woman in Nevada in 2001.

Prosecutors did not file any charges in the California case. The District Attorney for Clark County, Nevada, said it was unclear whether the sexual intercourse was consensual or forced.

In a lawsuit filed last year, the complaint in the current civil case in New York said the Adult Survivors Act “gives the plaintiff new hope and an opportunity to obtain compensation for his injuries and to show that even a man as powerful as Tyson can be held back.” “I am responsible before the law.”

Follow Josh Peter on social media @joshlpeter11

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers free, confidential, 24/7 support to survivors and their loved ones in English and Spanish: 800.656.HOPE (4673) and Hotline.RAINN.org and en Español RAINN.org/es.

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