Chris Brown sued; Woman says she was trapped, raped by his friends at his home

Maria Puente | USA TODAY

R&B singer Chris Brown is facing new legal woes and allegations of sexual violence, this time in a lawsuit filed by an anonymous accuser who says she was held against her will at his home, raped and forced to perform multiple sex acts on his male and female friends.

The lawsuit by "Jane Doe" was filed by crusading women's rights lawyer Gloria Allred Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. Doe is seeking damages for a slew of complaints, including sexual battery, assault, gender violence, civil rights violations, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

"This is one of the most horrific cases involving alleged sexual assaults that I have ever seen, and our client has been severely traumatized by what she was forced to endure," Allred told reporters at the courthouse.

Allred says Doe's story is that on the night of Feb. 23-24, 2017, she met Brown and his friend, Lowell Grissom Jr (aka "Young Lo") at a party at a recording studio after a concert. When she got there, her phone was taken away at Brown's instructions. Later, she says, she was forced to go to Brown's house in the San Fernando Valley to retrieve her phone.

Once there, Doe saw Brown provide drugs to his guests, saw guns on display, pornography on TV screens and multiple sex acts among Brown, Grissom and other women who were there.

She was frightened and intimidated by "aggressive" behavior in the house. Meanwhile, her mother tracked her phone to Brown's home and asked police to find her daughter. When police arrived, Brown denied them access and ordered his friends to hide a duffel bag filled with guns, the lawsuit says.

Doe became more afraid when she saw how defiant Brown was to the police, the lawsuit says.

She tried to leave but was tricked into entering a bedroom and prevented from leaving, the suit says. There, she says, she was forced to perform multiple sex acts on Grissom and a female friend of Brown's, who was identified in the lawsuit only as "Doe X."

"Plaintiff found herself being sexually battered by two people at the same time," the lawsuit says. Later, the lawsuit says, Grissom raped her two more times.

She got her phone, called for a ride, and went to a rape treatment center and to police where she reported what she said happened to her, the lawsuit says.

Allred said Doe filed the lawsuit to "warn other young women about the potential danger to themselves if they have their phone taken away and if they go to Chris Brown's house," Allred said.

Doe claims she has suffered physical injury, severe emotional distress and economic harm as a result of the defendants' "willful, wanton and malicious" conduct.

The Los Angeles Police Department says it has no open investigations of Brown. Allred did not respond to an email from USA TODAY asking when and where Doe filed a report about her allegations with police, and what if anything resulted.

Mark Geragos, Brown's lawyer, did not return a call from USA TODAY seeking comment. It is not clear who represents Grissom.

Brown has been in trouble before for incidents of violence, dating back to 2009 when he was arrested for assaulting Rihanna, his then-girlfriend, who was hospitalized with visible facial injuries. He pleaded guilty to a felony in a plea deal calling for community labor, five years’ probation and domestic violence counseling.

More recently, in August 2016, he was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after a woman claimed he threatened her with a gun at his home. He posted $250,000 bond and was released but it's not clear if that case was ever resolved.

Brown's lawyer, Geragos, insisted at the time that no guns or drugs were found in the singer's home when it was searched by police.

LAPD did not immediately return an email message from USA TODAY seeking information about the August 2016 gun case.