Russell Simmons Responds to Rape Charge

Russell Simmons is fighting back against a $10 million lawsuit accusing him of rape, dismissing it as nothing more than an attempt “to extort large sums of money” from him.

Simmons, who was accused in March of raping a woman in his hotel room following one of his concerts, has reportedly filed court documents to have the lawsuit against him thrown out should the woman be unable to substantiate her claims.

According to The Blast, who obtained the documents, Simmons refers to the lawsuit as a “work of pure fiction” and said it “is nothing more than an attempt by Jane Doe to extort large sums of money from Mr. Simmons and for her lawyer to try to make a name for himself.”

Simmons also claims in the documents that he believes the alleged incident took place in 1988, which would mean the statute of limitations has expired.

Simmons’ accuser, identified only as Jane Doe, alleged in her court filing that she had been chaperoning her son, who was in elementary school, at a hip hop concert. At some point in the night, Simmons approached them and invited them backstage to meet the headliner and afterward invited her to a party at the Clarion Hotel in the Los Angeles Area.

According to the suit, once at the hotel, Simmons led the woman, who had dropped her son off with another adult, to his room and threatened her, stating “I am going to f— you. I am going to f– you or I am going to f– your son. You decide.”

Jane Doe then claimed that Simmons “threw her on the bed and raped her,” though she did not specify when or where the alleged rape occurred.

Simmons had initially responded to the accusation by releasing a statement denying the claims, also stating that he had passed a lie detector test.

“I vehemently deny all the allegations made against me,” he said. “They have shocked me to my core as I have never been abusive or violent in any way in my relations with women. I have submitted myself to multiple lie detector tests. I denied forced sex and sexual harassment allegations brought against me in each test; I also answered no to the question, ‘Have you ever physically forced any woman to have sexual intercourse?’ I passed all of the lie detector tests.”

In August, Simmons went to court requesting that Jane Doe and her lawyers be sanctioned in the amount of $34,376 for fees and costs he incurred opposing “this baseless and improper” claim.

A judge has not yet ruled on Simmons’ most recent filing.