Smokey Robinson has filed a $500 million cross-complaint for defamation and elder abuse against the four former housekeepers who sued him with claims of sexual harassment and rape earlier this month.
The Motown musician, 85, says the former housekeepers conspired with their lawyer to make “slanderous statements” against him and his wife at a press conference on May 6. Robinson claims the women and their lawyer “fabricated” the claims to extort money.
According to the new filing, Robinson and his wife treated the women “as extended family” during their employment, giving them autonomy in their jobs and substantial gifts including money for dental work, clothing, vacations, concert tickets, and even a car in one case.
“The depths of plaintiffs’ avarice and greed knows no bounds. During the very time that the Robinsons were being extraordinarily generous with plaintiffs, plaintiffs were concocting an extortionate plan to take everything from the Robinsons (everything over and above what they were freely given) and wrongfully destroy the Robinsons’ well-built reputations,” the 19-page complaint obtained by Rolling Stone says.
The filing says that while the women and their lawyer, John W. Harris, were protected while making claims in a lawsuit, their litigation privilege did not extend to the “media circus” allegedly created at the press conference. (Harris and his law firm are named as defendants in the new lawsuit. Harris did not immediately reply to a request for comment.)
“Untethered to the complaint, John Harris professed to the media in attendance that ‘Mr. Robinson is a serial and sick rapist,’” the new cross-complaint states. “Plaintiffs may be able to make slanderous statements in a legal pleading (for now), but they are not entitled to do so in gratuitous, self-serving press conferences.”
According to Robinson’s filing, one of the housekeepers deleted text exchanges and photos from a phone belonging to Robinson’s wife, Frances Robinson. Still, the filing includes some purported texts. In one, a housekeeper invites Smokey Robinson to her son’s graduation dinner. In another text to Robinson dated Feb. 19, 2020, and attached as an exhibit, a housekeeper allegedly wrote, “Happy birthday God bless you have a wonderful Birthday love you.” The complaint also includes a redacted photo showing Frances Robinson with one of the plaintiffs on a vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
“The only sinister acts that occurred here were those of plaintiffs and their counsel by slandering the Robinsons’ good names and reputations,” the new cross-complaint states.
In a related motion filed Wednesday, Robinson and his wife asked the court to strike the women’s complaint and order them to refile it with their legal names, not Jane Doe pseudonyms. “The allegations in the complaint are so far removed from the truth that the Robinsons cannot identify which Doe is whom,” the motion says. “For instance, the Robinsons expect the facts will show that two of the plaintiffs are sisters, one inviting the other to work for the Robinsons, during a time that she now claims she was already being sexually assaulted.”
Parties in California civil actions are allowed to use pseudonyms if they can demonstrate that proceeding with real names could result in a specific harm, such as retaliatory physical or mental harm. The potential harm must be such that it creates an “overriding interest” that outweighs possible prejudice to the opposing party or the public’s interest in knowing a party’s identity.
In their lawsuit filed May 6 in Los Angeles, the four former housekeepers alleged Robinson isolated them at his homes in the San Fernando Valley and Las Vegas and repeatedly forced them into sexual contact without consent. The first alleged incident took place in 2007. Each woman alleges she was raped. The lawsuit, seeking $50 million in damages, included claims for sexual assault, sexual battery, false imprisonment, and gender violence.
“Obviously, no amount of money can compensate these women for what Mr. Robinson subjected them to, but given the gravity of Mr. Robinson’s despicable and reprehensible misconduct, that is further detailed in the complaint, this amount is clearly warranted,” lawyer John W. Harris said at the press conference.
Three of the Jane Does say they were unwilling to report the alleged abuse because they were afraid of losing their jobs. They also cited possible “adverse” outcomes related to immigration status. They were “intimidated” by Robinson’s “well-recognized celebrity status and his influential friends and associates,” the lawsuit said.
Robinson’s lawyer, Christopher Frost, previously said the lawsuit was based on “vile, false allegations.”
