'I was taken advantage of and manipulated': Man claims Elmo puppeteer 'lured him into meth-fueled sex in his New York apartment'

Sheldon Stephens claims in new lawsuit that Kevin Clash, the puppeteer for Elmo, lured him to sex parties



Also alleges that Clash smoked crystal meth during 'parties' and gave him recreational drugs



Follows three other victims stepping forward to allege abuse



Clash did not immediately comment on newest allegations



The longtime voice and puppeteer of beloved Sesame Street character Elmo lured a minor into drug-fueled underground sex parties, a sensational new allegation claims today.

Speaking at a Manhattan news conference today, Sheldon Stephens, 24, said he was ‘manipulated’ by Clash, 52 when he was still a minor.



The two met at a networking event for models and actors, and was later brought by chauffeured limousine from his Pennsylvania home to Clash’s New York City apartment.



Allegations: Sheldon Stephens has also filed a suit against the former puppeteer for Elmo, claiming the entertainer lured him into drug-fueled sex when he was 16

Suit: Sheldon Stephens, left, accompanied by his attorney Jeff Herman, at today's news conference

Once there, Stephens alleges that Clash smoked crystal meth and gave him ‘poppers,’ a recreational drug used as an aphrodisiac drug.

Stephens, who first made allegations against Clash last year, today accused Clash of sexual battery for childhood sexual abuse; travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct; and coercion and enticement to sexual activity.

Stephens is asking for unspecified damages and coverage of his legal expenses; he never received a settlement from his previous lawsuit.

Clash's attorney, Michael Berger, said in a statement Tuesday that his client denies any wrongdoing. He said Stephens already admitted he had had an adult consensual relationship with Clash. New claims: The first accuser of Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash, pictured, has now alleged that the actor dragged him to drug-fueled sex parties

Three other men also are suing Clash, alleging underage sex. Clash resigned from 'Sesame Street' in November.

Stephens first made the allegations last year. His lawyer, Jeff Herman, said Stephens recanted over the possibility of a settlement, but none was ever reached.



Herman said his client would not discuss details of any possible agreement.

Last November, a Florida man became the fourth person to make shocking allegations against Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash. The unidentified man charged that Clash flew him from Miami to New York, where they had sexual contact in his apartment, according to an explosive criminal complaint filed today.

In the complaint, which identifies the accuser only as John Doe, says that he was about 15 or 16 years old when he met Clash on the street in Miami Beach in late 1995 or early 1996. .

Ordeal: In Clash's apartment, the accuser said he was victimized by the puppeteer, who allegedly had sexual contact with him numerous times - including anal and oral sex - over four days



Turned into a 'monster': Sheldon Stephens, 23, the Pennsylvanian model was the first to accuse Clash. He recanted his allegation but has since claimed to have done so under duress

Clash allegedly complimented the boy on his looks, and they struck up a friendship. It wasn't long before he had to go back to New York. But he kept in contact with the victim via telephone.



During these phone calls, the accuser said that Clash urged the boy to visit him, promising him cash and a place to stay.



The boy, who was thinking about running away from home anyway, agreed, and Clash sent him a plane ticket and arranged for a car to pick him up at the airport.



But in Clash's apartment, the man, now 33, said he was victimized by the older man, who allegedly had sexual contact with him numerous times.

'Once he got to New York, it was all about the sex,' t he victim's Florida-based attorney, Jeff Herman, told MailOnline.

Ice party: The accuser claims in the lawsuit that Clash took crystal meth and gave him 'poppers,' or alkyl nitrates ¿ inhaled as an aphrodisiac (file photo)

The victim claimed that during the four-day stay in Clash's apartment, the veteran puppeteer had anal sex but later told the teen that he couldn't penetrate him due to a medical condition.

After that, Clash allegedly had the boy perform oral sex on him.



It was also during the New York trip that the accuser found out Clash was the man behind the red hair and high-pitched speech of Elmo on Sesame Street

After returning to Miami, the victim said that he spoke with Clash several times over the phone, but he never saw him in person again.



Mr Herman said that as a result of the encounter with Clash, as well as a similar incident with a high school teacher the year before, the victim has battled drug addiction and has spent time in jail.

The accuser is seeking money damages in the civil case.

Herman said: 'According to our lawsuit, Kevin Clash knowingly paid to transport a minor across state lines for the purpose of satisfying his sexual interests.'



Counsel: The fourth accuser is being represented by Jeff Herman, who is also representing victims three and four

In a statement to MailOnline, Clash's attorney Michael Berger said: 'The lawsuit is without merit and we will vigorously defend the case and Mr. Clash's reputation.'

The new case comes just weeks after the third accuser said Clash used alcohol to 'groom' a 16-year-old boy who called him Mr Tickler into engaging in sexual acts in a 'game of father and son.'

Victim 3, was contacted by Clash on a gay chat line called Powerchat and they met in Clash's upscale Manhattan apartment in 2000.

He said the puppeteer used an alias, giving his name as Craig and claiming to be 30 when in fact he was 40.



Now 29, the victim said: 'Mr Tickler is what I will call him and the game we played was father and son. We first met when I was 16 and there was no intercourse, lots of heavy kissing and he showed me what it felt like to get on your knees and obey your man.'



Elmo's creator: Clash is accused of taking advantage of underage boys while he was the voice of Elmo

According to the details of the lawsuit, gave John alcohol and engaged in various sexual acts with the 16-year-old. It states, 'This was John's first sexual experience of this type'.

John reports seeing 'numerous Elmo dolls and photographs of Elmo with famous people such as Beyonce and Tyra Banks,' on display in the older man's apartment.

At the time John, from Florida, was not living in Manhattan but, following that initial encounter, Clash called him 'incessantly to arrange meetings for sexual encounters.'

Over the next year Clash kept in contact with John.

The accuser told Clash of his plans to move to New York after graduating from High School to pursue his ambitions in modelling.

Clash's attorney, Michael Berger responded to the latest allegations stating, 'The federal cases filed against Kevin Clash are without merit.

'The cases and Mr Clash's reputation will be defended vigorously.'

The third accuser, as well as the second, is also represented by Mr Herman .

Cecil Singleton, 24, left, and his lawyer Jeff Herman, right, the attorney described Clash as a 'continued threat'

The filed lawsuit maintains that Clash 'engaged in a sexual relationship with John once John was living in New York and after John had turned 18.'

It was only then, it continues, that John did an internet search and discovered that Clash was the voice of Elmo.



Shortly after filing the lawsuit on behalf of 'Victim 3,' Mr Herman told MailOnline: 'The behavior that my clients call dating, I call grooming. I see this in my work all the time whether it's a priest, a boyscout leader, a teacher or an uncle.

'The first thing my client wants me to say is it's not about money for him. There is no monetary amount attached to this claim and if it goes to trial that's for the jury to decide.

'This is about standing by his fellow victims.'

Amid a flurry of accusations, the 52-year-old Sesame Street star resigned when Cecil Singleton became the second young man to step forward with tales of inappropriate and underage sexual relations with Clash.

Mr Singleton claims to have first met Clash over a gay phone line in 2003 when he was just 15 and Clash was 42.

He has said he is 'happy' that Clash has resigned and claims a torrid two-week affair that followed their first meeting.



He alleges that it was characterised by groping, intense kissing and various sex-acts that stopped short of full intercourse.



A desire to expose the truth: Cecil Singleton speaking this week at a press conference in New York. He is the second youth to accuse Clash

But, Mr Singleton asserts: 'If I had to make an educated guess and say if we had stayed together we more than likely would have had sex at that age.'

Sesame Street said that Clash has shown poor judgement in using the internet and emails inappropriately but insist that stepping aside means he would have time to defend his reputation.

Clash and Singleton did in fact meet again and went on to have a full sexual relationship but not, Mr Singleton stressed, 'until years later when I was an adult'.

In a statement issued on his behalf last week Clash said, 'I am a gay man. I have never been ashamed of this or tried to hide it, but felt it was a personal and private matter.'

He said he was, 'saddened' by his accusers' attempts to characterise what he described as 'consensual relationships' as anything other than that.



Back in 2003, Clash had 'presented himself as the perfect gentleman. He told me how beautiful I was...After dinner, we talked and talked,' Singleton recalled.

'He asked me if I might come to his apartment so he could give me a proper good-night kiss. He gave me the most passionate kiss I ever had experienced'.

That same year Clash's divorce from ex-wife Geina, by whom he has a 19-year-old daughter, Shannon, was finalised.

Some rare time with his daughter Shannon, now 19. Kevin was in New York for much of her childhood while her mother raised her in Virginia Kevin and daughter Shannon, 19, at the Baltimore family home where they celebrated Thanksgiving last year. She used to beg him to spend time with her

'My client never really thought of himself as a victim,' Mr Herman explained. The 24-year-old is, by his attorney's own assessment a 'sophistciated young man,' and better able to handle the emotional fall-out from his experiences than many in a similar situation might be.

Mr Herman said: 'It was the realisation that this had happened to other people that led Cecil to come forward. Cecil had thought he was the only one and learning that he wasn't made him want to expose the truth. That really is why he's doing this.

'He alleges that Clash went on websites and chatlines seeking out young men, looking for teenage boys and that concerns him more really than his own situation. He doesn't want this to happen again.

'Seeing Sheldon Stephens is what made him speak up'.

When model, entrepreneur and actor Sheldon Stephens accused Clash of sexual abuse he quickly found his own criminal past made public

Mr Stephens, 23, was the first young man to level allegations of sexual misconduct at the middle-age children's entertainer.

In a confusing tumble of events Stephens, who describes himself on his Twitter accounts as an 'Entrepreneur, student, model and actor' first accused Clash of having sex with him when he was 16.



He subsequently publicly recanted, claiming a 'misunderstanding' and stating that, on reflection, he had been 18 all along.



This re-think reportedly came along with a $125,000 settlement.

Lawyers for Stephens released a statement on his behalf, reading: 'He [Stephens] wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr Clash was an adult consensual relationship.'

Stephens recanted as his own far from pure past was publicly raked over. He once worked as an intern for music manager Darian Pollard.

It emerged that, in 2009, Mr Pollard contacted the Beverly Hills Police claiming that he had stolen a 'white gold necklace with diamonds' and a 'white gold ring with diamond baguettes'.



Stephens had boarded a plane from Los Angeles to his hometown of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and was arrested at the airport wearing the jewelry. The charges were subsequently dropped.

The young model was shown to have a list of offences including reckless driving and passing a bad cheque - though that too was dismissed after he made good with the business to which the cheque had been written.