Jamie Foxx, the Academy Award-winning actor and musician, is being sued by a woman who claims he sexually assaulted her at a rooftop bar in August 2015.
The suit, filed in New York Supreme Court on Wednesday, alleges Foxx fondled the unnamed woman and further violated her after he stuck his hand down her pants. It was filed just two days before the expiration date for the New York Adult Survivors Act, which gives adult sexual assault survivors one year to sue regardless of when the statute of limitations expired.
A spokesperson for Foxx told NBC News on Thursday that “the alleged incident never happened.”
Foxx intends to pursue a claim for malicious prosecution, according to the spokesperson.
The woman alleges that she and a friend, both of whom had been sitting a table away from him, walked over to ask for a picture with Foxx, who had been having drinks with a co-founder and the owner of the business, Catch NYC & Roof. While they were taking pictures, an "intoxicated" Foxx "roughly" grabbed the woman's phone and continued to take more pictures while also making suggestive comments like “Wow, you have that super model body," according to the suit.
Then, he grabbed her arm to pull her to the back of the rooftop, where he slid his hand under her shirt and began rubbing her breasts, the suit alleges. The woman tried to move away, but Foxx slid his hands into her pants and put his fingers on and in her vagina and anus, according to the court filing.
A security guard saw what was going on but walked away anyway, the suit alleges. It adds that when the woman's friend walked over, Foxx stopped touching her and walked over to the security guard.
Also named in the suit are Catch NYC & Roof — the rooftop bar at 21 Ninth Ave. in New York — Catch NYC Inc., Catch Hospitality Group and Mark Birnbaum, the owner of Catch. Catch NYC and Birnbaum did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday night.
The suit alleges Birnbaum and those working at the bar that night did not do their jobs and were "negligent" in protecting their clientele.
Birnbaum and Catch's employees "had knowledge of Foxx's propensities for aggressive behavior towards females, the potential for unwanted sexual touching and his bad disposition when consuming excessive alcohol," the suit alleges.
The woman alleges in the lawsuit that she required medical treatment because of the incident, experienced "pain and suffering" and continues to feel the effects of the assault, all of which caused her "severe emotional distress and anxiety, humiliation, embarrassment, post-traumatic stress disorder and other physical and emotional damages."
She is asking for unspecified damages.
A spokesperson for Foxx said: “In 2020, this individual filed a nearly identical lawsuit in Brooklyn. That case was dismissed shortly thereafter. The claims are no more viable today than they were then.”
“We are confident they will be dismissed again. And once they are, Mr. Foxx intends to pursue a claim for malicious prosecution against this person and her attorneys for re-filing this frivolous action,” the spokesperson added.
On Friday, Michael S. Lamonsoff, an attorney for the woman, said in a statement that the claim that the suit was dismissed was "baseless and untrue." Although the woman "sought justice" by coming to his firm in 2020, the Adult Survivors Act had not been passed back then, Lamonsoff said.
“Our client and our firm will not be intimidated by Jamie Foxx’s age-old tactic of lies and threats against survivors of sexual assault," the woman's attorney said in the statement.
"Thankfully, the ASA was passed, allowing our client to demand accountability for the abuse and mental anguish she had endured since the time of this heinous assault," Lamonsoff continued.
