FILE – New Orleans Pelicans ahead Zion Williamson (1) appears to be like on throughout the first half of an NBA basketball sport towards the Charlotte Hornets, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Picture/Matt Kelley, File)
Zion Williamson is being sued by a girl describing herself as a former courting companion and who alleges the New Orleans Pelicans star dedicated repeated sexual violence towards her.
The civil lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court docket on Thursday evening, identifies the plaintiff as “Jane Doe.” She claims she started courting Williamson in 2018, when he performed at Duke, and alleges that he engaged in abusive conduct towards her in California, Louisiana and Texas from 2020 till their relationship led to 2023.
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Williamson’s New Orleans-based legal professional, Michael Balascio, known as the claims within the lawsuit “categorically false and reckless,” and accused the plaintiff of extortion, which he stated has been reported to legislation enforcement.
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and we unequivocally deny them,” Balascio stated in a written assertion supplied to The Related Press. “This seems to be an try to use an expert athlete pushed by a monetary motive slightly than any legit grievance.”
The lawsuit alleges that the primary occasion of sexual violence occurred in a house Williamson had rented in Beverly Hills, California.
The lawsuit additionally alleges that Williamson quickly took the plaintiff’s cell phone from her after the primary two cases of compelled intercourse and in addition took her laptop computer after the second.
The criticism contains accusations of strangulation, loss of life threats to the plaintiff and her household, and bodily abuse, together with being kicked, slammed with a automotive door, and suffocated till she misplaced consciousness.
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“We’re going to be very cautious about litigating this within the press,” stated the plaintiff’s legal professional, Sam Taylor II, who’s with the Lanier Legislation Agency in Los Angeles.
“It is a very severe case as mirrored within the allegations within the criticism, that are fairly detailed,” Taylor continued, including that his shopper “genuinely appears to be like ahead to her day in courtroom when she will inform a jury of her friends what occurred to her and search justice.”
The lawsuit seeks financial damages — together with punitive damages — for emotional misery.
Balascio stated Williamson and the plaintiff “by no means dated, however did keep a consensual, informal relationship that started greater than six years in the past,” when Williamson was 18.
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“At no level throughout or instantly after that relationship did the plaintiff elevate any considerations,” Balascio stated, including that “solely after the friendship ended did she start demanding hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.”
Williamson additionally intends to file counterclaims and “search vital damages for this defamatory lawsuit,” Balascio stated.
A Pelicans spokesman stated the membership was conscious of the matter however deferred remark to Williamson’s lawyer.
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Williamson was the primary participant picked within the 2019 draft. In six years as a professional, he has averaged 24.7 factors per sport. However has performed in solely 214 of 472 common season video games — and no playoff video games — throughout that span due to a sequence of accidents, certainly one of which induced him to overlook the complete 2021-22 season.
