New York Post

Russ rape accusers

4 slam hip-hop honcho

- By JOE TACOPINO

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons has been accused of rape by four women and additional “violent sexual behavior” by others who knew him profession­ally since the early 1980s, according to reports Wednesday.

The women include an executive at his Def Jam record label, a music journalist and a singer he managed, The New York Times reported.

Def Jam exec Drew Dixon claimed Simmons (inset) exposed himself to her “regularly” and once raped her in his downtown office.

She quit the label soon after.

Journalist Toni Sallie said Simmons lured her to his Manhattan apartment, where he “pushed me on the bed” and raped her in 1988, the Times reported.

Pop singer Tina Baker claimed Simmons once pinned her to a bed and raped her in the early ’90s, when he was her manager.

Simmons denied all the allegation­s in the Times, saying the “horrific accusation­s have shocked me to my core and all of my relations have been consensual.”

Meanwhile, The Los Angeles Times reported more allegation­s against Simmons.

Sherri Hines, of a 1980s all-female hip-hop group, claimed that Simmons raped her in his office around 1983. “The next thing I knew, he was pinning me down and I was trying to fight him and he had his way,” she told the paper. “I left crying.”

In response to the LA Times story, Simmons said, “I regret with my whole heart any conduct that has led anyone to say or think of me in the ways that are currently being written.”

The hip-hop pioneer stepped down from his company last month amid allegation­s of misconduct from two women, including screenwrit­er Jenny Lumet.

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