A sexual assault case against Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler has been thrown out by a US judge who ruled that the singer's alleged actions at the time, back in 1975, did not pose “serious risk of physical injury” to the plaintiff.
The lawsuit against Tyler, filed in November last year under New York City's Victim of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act, was brought by former model Jeanne Bellino, who was 17 at the time she met Tyler, who was then 27. Bellino claims that the singer pushed her into a phone booth as the pair walked down New York's Sixth Avenue with Tyler's entourage, and assaulted her.
The claim filed by Bellino's legal team, stated: “While holding her captive, Tyler stuck his tongue down her throat, and put his hands upon her body, her breasts, her buttocks and her genitals, moving and removing clothing and pinning her against the wall of the phone booth .As Tyler was mauling and groping Plaintiff, he was humping her pretending to have sex with Plaintiff. Others stood by outside the phone booth laughing and as passersby watched and witnessed, nobody in the entourage intervened.”
Bellino also alleged that Tyler assaulted her a second time on the same day, at his hotel.
The lawsuit stated that Bellino “has suffered and will continue to suffer, great pain of mind and body, severe and permanent emotional distress, physical manifestations of emotional distress, embarrassment, humiliation, physical, personal and psychological injuries” as a result of the alleged assault. She allegedly required hospital treatment in the wake of the incident, and revealed that she still takes medication “to cope with the sexual assault and has suffered long-term physical injury associated with the trauma.”
Ruling in Tyler's favour, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan states that Bellino’s accusations against the singer were not admissible under the law because Tyler’s actions did not pose “serious risk of physical injury.”
Bellino has until March 13 to resubmit her case.
Tyler is currently also contesting a lawsuit related to the alleged sexual assault of a minor. Julia Misley, formerly known as Julia Holcomb, is the plaintiff in the lawsuit, which includes charges of sexual assault, sexual battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, allegedly occurring during a three-year relationship she had with the singer in the mid-'70s.
In his 2011 memoir Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?, Tyler writes about his relationship with a 16-year-old "girlfriend to be", claiming that her parents signed over custody to him so he could travel out of state with her. References to the relationship are also made in the Aerosmith biography Walk This Way, with Tyler calling it a “tricky situation all around.”
