Brand accused of sex assault on extra while f ilming Arthur
RUSSELL BRAND is facing a civil court trial in the US over claims he sexually assaulted a film extra who worked on his 2011 movie Arthur.
It comes after the comedian vehemently denied claims made by four women in a Channel 4 Dispatches and Sunday Times investigation which include allegations of rape, sexual assault and grooming between 2006 and 2013. Brand says any sexual encounters were consensual.
Now an unidentified woman in New York has filed a four-page civil lawsuit against the star. She claims that Brand ‘was carrying a bottle of vodka on set’, before allegedly assaulting her on July 7, 2010.
In court documents filed in New York’s Supreme Court last month, the woman claims the star ‘exposed his penis to me on set in full view of the cast and crew’.
She added: ‘The sexual assault happened later that same day when I was in the bathroom. Mr Brand entered after me and assaulted me as a member of the production crew guarded the door from outside.’
Despite ongoing investigations by UK police into some of the claims previously made against Brand, the New York case marks the first legal action against the comic.
A sexual crimes lawyer based in LA said: ‘This marks a very serious development for Mr Brand. If this civil case goes ahead he will have to give sworn depositions under oath.
‘If he is found guilty of the charges he could face paying millions of dollars in punitive damages and compensation to the alleged victim.’
The New York accuser is also suing Warner Brothers studios and other companies connected with the movie – which also starred Helen Mirren, Jennifer Garner and Barbie director
Greta Gerwig – for negligence and ‘aiding and abetting’ Brand, by tolerating his alleged misconduct on set. She claims she was hired for three days but was not brought back after the alleged assault, and was paid only for one day.
The woman told the Sunday Times the behaviour left her feeling ‘disgusting’. She said: ‘I felt used and abused. Disgusting is the only word.’ She also claimed that straight after the alleged assault she felt too fearful to tell others on set.
She said: ‘If I had come forward and said something to, say, even a production assistant, what are they going to do? Are they going to fire Russell Brand or are they going to fire me? No one would want to tarnish him – they would tarnish me because they would look at me like I’m a troublemaker.’
The actress has asked for anonymity as she is ‘terrified’ of being blacklisted in the film industry and fears retaliation from some of Brand’s millions of followers.
Brand claimed the previous allegations against him – including a woman who alleges he raped her in his LA mansion – were part of a ‘coordinated attack’ by the mainstream media. He said: ‘I don’t mind them using my books and my stand-up to talk about my promiscuous consensual conduct in the past. What I seriously refute are these very, very serious criminal allegations.’
Brand’s spokesman and Warner Brothers studios were contacted for comment.