The law behind the last-minute sex abuse claims against high-profile men like Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, NY Mayor Eric Adams
Molly Crane-Newman | New York Daily News
The final day to file time-barred sex abuse claims under the Adult Survivors Act saw a down-to-the-wire spike of high-profile filings Thursday that swept in rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs for the second time in a week, more cases against Robert Hadden — and reached Mayor Adams himself.
Adams late Wednesday became the latest in a long list of public figures sued under the legislation in a lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting a former colleague, whom the Daily News is not naming, in 1993. Adams strenuously denies the alleged attack, details of which have not yet been disclosed.
The allegations against the mayor were added to the Manhattan Supreme Court docket a few hours after lawsuits appeared against actor Jamie Foxx for an alleged 2015 sexual assault and Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose for allegedly raping a woman in 1989. Both men deny the accusations. Foxx has threatened to countersue.
Among the last cases filed under the Adult Survivors Act to hit the dockets was against Combs, who was sued by Joie Dickerson-Neal for allegedly sexually assaulting and drugging her in 1991 when she was a student at Syracuse University. She also alleges Combs recorded the incident. A lawyer for the music mogul, who settled a bombshell rape and sexual assault case brought by R&B singer Cassie Ventura on Friday, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Adult Survivors Act, signed into law by Gov. Hochul in May 2022, provided sexual abuse victims over 18 with the ability to sue individuals and institutions for the harm they suffered, no matter how long ago, for one year starting on Thanksgiving. It enabled victims of Jeffrey Epstein to sue the banks where he kept his money at the time they were abused — resulting in settlements in the hundreds of millions but no admissions of wrongdoing — and former patients of disgraced gynecologist Robert Hadden to hold his employers accountable long after they stopped waiting for justice.
Thursday saw more cases added to hundreds against Columbia University’s board of trustees by Hadden’s former patients, including one woman who said she was 22 when he began abusing her during medical appointments and another who was 45. Hadden was convicted of federal sex crimes and sentenced to 20 years in prison earlier this year.
The passage of the Adult Survivors Act followed years of lobbying efforts by advocates who pushed lawmakers to recognize trauma research that shows sex abuse victims commonly need more time to process their experience than the statute of limitations allows.
“I was ashamed. I thought it was my fault,” E. Jean Carroll testified when asked why she waited decades to come forward against Donald Trump in April in her sexual assault case filed under the Adult Survivors Act. A jury sided with her in May and awarded her $5 million.
“Women who are raped are looked at as soiled goods. They are looked at as less. People say, ‘Oh, you’re so brave, you’re so brave, but really they are thinking, I don’t know, she should have been smarter or, I don’t know, she should have screamed … Maybe she flirted too much.”
Though the legislation has resulted in dozens of headline-grabbing cases, data provided by state court administrators shows the majority of the more than 2,500 suits filed under the law have alleged abuse in jails and prisons. Those claims continued to grow Thursday, including with a Manhattan Supreme Court suit filed by a former detainee at Bedford Hills correctional facility, who alleged she was repeatedly raped, assaulted, and battered by a former correctional officer in 1985.
Starting Friday, people who wish to bring claims for most types of sexual misconduct will have five years from the date of the alleged incident. New York lawmakers in 2019 extended the statute of limitations for people to file claims for rape and certain forms of severe sexual violence from five to 20 years, but it cannot be applied retroactively.
Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, who co-sponsored the Adult Survivors Act and the Child Victims Act it mirrored, told The News earlier this week that she’s exploring a bill that would create another temporary lookback window or possibly a permanent one.
City residents who wish to pursue claims for crimes of violence motivated by gender that fall outside the statute of limitations will still be able to lean on the City Council’s Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law until it expires in March 2025.