Sport agent Jonathan Barnett accused of rape in US lawsuit
"We will vigorously defend this lawsuit through the appropriate legal process. I am looking forward to being entirely vindicated and exonerated," a statement from his lawyers said.Mr Barnett was ranked as the world's most powerful sports agent in 2019 by Forbes magazine.The civil case was filed on Wednesday.According to court documents, the pair first met in the 1990s through a professional athlete in London and reconnected online and then in person in 2017. Within a matter of weeks she relocated to the UK with her teenage children - with sports agency CAA Stellar, headed by Mr Barnett, covering moving expenses.The filing says that upon her arrival, he told her he "owned" her and raped her in a hotel room.Mr Barnett went on to impose strict rules to obey him at all times, referring to him as "My Master" and to "never say it hurts", according to the lawsuit. The complaint goes on to describe alleged degrading acts that included drinking urine or ingesting faeces. The alleged torture also included the woman "tied up overnight without food or water".She says she was "trafficked, threatened, tortured, and held" in bondage in different locations throughout the world, including Los Angeles, from 2017 to 2023."Realising she was powerless against a dangerous predator, Ms Doe submitted to Barnett in order to avoid being severely beaten or even killed," the lawsuit said.
"Jane Doe" is also suing Hollywood talent firm Creative Artists Agency and sports agency CAA Stellar, where Mr Barnett was executive chairman until his retirement last year.The court documents state the CAA Stellar's parent companies, talent agencies ICM and CAA, "failed to find and/or willfully or recklessly disregarded" that substantial payments were made between 2017 and 2023, despite the woman not being an athlete or agent. It is claimed Barnett referred to her as "slave" in emails sent from his work account.Court documents say Mr Barnett used his "money and power to maintain coercive control" over the woman who was "in fear of her life and the lives of her children". Lawyers for "Jane Doe" state the case is about "institutional abuse at the highest level". They are seeking compensation on her behalf. According to LA Times, CAA said it first heard of the woman's allegations last year when her lawyers made settlement demands - and the press inquired."While the complaint attempts to connect these allegations to CAA's business, Ms Doe has never been an employee, consultant, or contractor of CAA, ICM, or Stellar, nor has she ever had any business connection to CAA, ICM, or Stellar," CAA said in its statement. "CAA takes any allegations of this nature seriously, and through counsel, promptly urged Ms Doe to contact law enforcement in the United Kingdom."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
I was reporting in London on the day of the 7/7 bombings - here's what happened
I heard about the 7/7 bombings from the guard on my train into London. Well, sort of. We had ground to a halt sometime after 9am just outside Croydon when he ambled through our carriage to warn us there was trouble ahead - a power surge had knocked out the whole of the London Underground network. That was all he could tell us, so I had to work out the rest for myself from ringing the people who might really know what was going on. At that stage, officially, the emergency services were dealing with a fire at Aldgate Tube station. A senior press officer at Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police headquarters, told me rather more than he would normally have done: it was serious, several incidents, some casualties. "Anyone dead?" I asked. "Yes, but please don't report that yet," he said. "Maybe." 3:10 I was told there were explosions at five Tube stations and anti-terror branch officers were on their way. At around 9.40am, via my mobile phone from the train carriage, I repeated all that live on Sky News. While I was on air a colleague, producer Bob Mills, phoned in with an extraordinary account of him seeing a blast rip apart a red double-decker bus near Euston. When I finally put down the phone my fellow passengers were understandably alarmed. So was I. And not for the first time, I was in the wrong place as a major crime story was breaking, and if I was worried, it was more that my rivals would be getting ahead of me on the details. Sky News was already showing helicopter footage of dazed and bloodied passengers emerging from Aldgate Tube station. The more seriously injured were being stretchered away. All Underground and bus services were suspended, and with no taxi in sight and through the drizzle, I walked the two and a half miles from Cannon Street station to Scotland Yard in Westminster. I was headed against a tide of bewildered people through damp streets that echoed with the wail and screech of emergency vehicle sirens. At precisely 11.10am my phone died as the whole mobile system crashed under the weight of calls. I was told later that Scotland Yard had considered shutting the network for fear the bombs - like those that killed 193 train commuters in Madrid a year earlier - had been triggered by mobile phones used as timers. I got to Scotland Yard around 11.30am, joined a posse of reporters and our own live camera crew on the pavement outside, plugged in my earpiece and was there, day and night, for three weeks. Read more: 7/7 - the bravery of victims and responders 20 years on How Prevent is tackling extremism 20 years on Why is the govt's anti-terrorism programme controversial? Before midday, Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair went on TV, saying that the capital had been hit by "probably a major terrorist attack". He repeated, mistakenly, what I had reported, that there had been five Underground explosions. In fact there were only three, at Aldgate, Edgware Road and Russell Square stations. Get Sky News on WhatsApp Follow our channel and never miss an update Tap here to follow The confusion arose because some survivors had escaped by walking through tunnels and emerging above ground further away at King's Cross and Liverpool Street. The bombs were a huge shock, but not unexpected. My mind went back four years to the al Qaeda 9/11 attacks in the United States. Days after 9/11, at a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority, I had listened to the then-commissioner Sir John Stevens tell the committee: "Make no mistake, we're next." By 1pm police sources suggested at least 40 people had died with hundreds injured, many seriously. In an evening report I raised the spectre of suicide bombers. If confirmed they would be the first in the UK. I was told by someone who had been to the site of the bus blast that a body recovered there had injuries consistent with those found on suicide bombers in Israel and Iraq. 1:22 At 6.13pm police announced that at least 37 were dead. It went up to 38 that night when a critically injured victim died in hospital. The eventual death toll was 52. It had been an extraordinary day, but there was much more drama to come over the next three weeks, with the discovery of the bomb factory in Leeds, unexploded devices, the identities of the terrorists, an attempted copycat attack and the shooting by police of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, mistaken for a would-be bomber. Britain's terror threat had changed forever. Who were the victims of the 7/7 bombings The 52 victims of the London terror attack on 7 July 2005 are remembered with a memorial in Hyde Park. Here are the names of the victims and where they were killed. Russell Square James Adams, 32 Sam Badham, 35 Philip Beer, 22 Anna Brandt, 41 Ciaran Cassidy, 22 Rachelle Chung For Yeun, 27 Liz Daplyn, 26 Arthur Frederick, 60 Karolina Gluck, 29 Gamze Gunoral, 24 Lee Christopher Harris, 30 Ojara Ikeagwu, 56 Emily Jenkins, 24 Helen Jones, 28 Susan Levy, 53 Shelley Mather, 26 Michael Matsushita, 37 James Mayes, 28 Behnaz Mozakka, 47 Mihaela Otto, 46 Atique Sharifi, 24 Ihab Slimane, 24 Christian Small, 28 Monika Suchocka, 23 Mala Trivedi, 51 Adrian Johnson, 37 Tavistock Square Anthony Fatayi-Williams, 26 Jamie Gordon, 30 Giles Hart, 55 Marie Hartley, 34 Miriam Hyman, 31 Shahara Islam, 20 Neetu Jain, 37 Sam Ly, 28 Shyanuja Parathasangary, 30 Anat Rosenberg, 39 Philip Russell, 28 William Wise, 54 Gladys Wundowa, 50 Aldgate Lee Baisden, 34 Benedetta Ciaccia, 30 Richard Ellery, 21 Richard Gray, 41 Anne Moffat, 48 Carrie Taylor, 24 Fiona Stevenson, 29 Edgware Road Michael Stanley Brewster, 52 Jonathan Downey, 34 David Graham Foulkes, 22 Colin William Morley, 52 Jennifer Vanda Nicholson, 24 Laura Webb, 29
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Diddy received 'standing ovation' from fellow inmates after shock court victory
Sean ' Diddy ' Combs received a 'standing ovation' from fellow inmates when he returned to jail after winning acquittals on charges that carried a life sentence. The disgraced music mogul's, 55, attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said inmates cheered Combs on for 'beating' a high-profile federal case. 'They all said: "We never get to see anyone who beats the government,"' Agnifilo told The Associated Press in a weekend interview, days after a jury acquitted Combs of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges. Combs remains jailed at a federal lockup in Brooklyn after his conviction Wednesday on prostitution-related charges, which could put him in prison for several more years. Any sentence will include credit for time already served. Currently, that's almost 10 months. Agnifilo also recalled how after federal agents raided Combs' homes in Los Angeles and Miami in March 2024, he advised the hip-hop star that sex trafficking charges were imminent. 'I said: "Maybe it's your fate in life to be the guy who wins,"' he recalled during a telephone interview briefly interrupted by a jailhouse call from Combs. 'They need to see that someone can win. I think he took that to heart.' The verdict came after a team of eight defense lawyers led by Agnifilo executed a trial strategy that resonated with jurors. Combs passed lawyers notes during effective cross-examinations of nearly three dozen witnesses over two months, including Combs' ex-employees. The lawyers told jurors Combs was a jealous domestic abuser with a drug problem who participated in the swinger lifestyle through threesomes involving Combs, his girlfriends and another man. 'You may think to yourself, wow, he is a really bad boyfriend,' Combs' lawyer Teny Geragos told jurors in her May opening statement. But that, she said, 'is simply not sex trafficking.' Agnifilo said the blunt talk was a 'no brainer.' 'The violence was so clear and up front and we knew the government was going to try to confuse the jury into thinking it was part of a sex trafficking effort. So we had to tell the jury what it was so they wouldn't think it was something it wasn't,' he said. Combs and his lawyers appeared deflated Tuesday when jurors said they were deadlocked on the racketeering count but reached a verdict on sex trafficking and lesser prostitution-related charges. A judge ordered them back to deliberate Wednesday. 'No one knows what to think,' Agnifilo said. Then he slept on it. 'I wake up at three in the morning and I text Teny and say: "We have to get a bail application together," he recalled. "It's going to be a good verdict for us but I think he went down on the prostitution counts so let's try to get him out."' He said he 'kind of whipped everybody into feeling better' after concluding jurors would have convicted him of racketeering if they had convicted him of sex trafficking because trafficking was an alleged component of racketeering. Agnifilo met with Combs before court and Combs entered the courtroom rejuvenated. In less than an hour, the jury matched Agnifilo's prediction. Combs mouthed 'thank you' to jurors and smiled as family and supporters applauded. After he was escorted from the room, spectators cheered the defense team, a few chanting: 'Dream Team! Dream Team!' Several lawyers, including Geragos, cried. 'This was a major victory for the defense and a major loss for the prosecution,' said Mitchell Epner, a lawyer who worked with Agnifilo as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey over two decades ago. He credited 'a dream team of defense lawyers' against prosecutors who almost always win. Agnifilo showcased what would become his trial strategy - belittling the charges and mocking the investigation that led to them - last September in arguing unsuccessfully for bail. The case against Combs was what happens when the 'federal government comes into our bedrooms,' he said. During an eight-week trial, Combs' lawyers picked apart the prosecution case with mostly gentle but firm cross-examinations. Combs never testified and his lawyers called no witnesses. Ironically, Agnifilo expanded the use of racketeering laws as a federal prosecutor on an organized crime task force in New Jersey two decades ago, using them often to indict street gangs in violence-torn cities. 'I knew the weak points in the statute,' he said. 'The statute is very mechanical. If you know how the car works, you know where the fail points are.' He said prosecutors had 'dozens of fail points.' 'They didn't have a conspiracy, they just didn't,' he said. 'They basically had Combs' personal life and tried to build racketeering around personal assistants.' Some personal assistants, even after viewing videos of Combs beating his longtime girlfriend, Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura — who was seen for the first time since the verdict over the weekend — had glowing things to say about Combs on cross examination. For Combs, Agnifilo sees a long road ahead once he is freed as he works on personal demons, likely reentering a program for domestic batterers that he had just started before his arrest. 'He's doing OK,' said Agnifilo, who speaks with him four or five times daily. He said Combs genuinely desires improvement and 'realizes he has flaws like everyone else that he never worked on.' 'He burns hot in all matters. I think what he has come to see is that he has these flaws and there's no amount of fame and no amount of fortune that can erase them,' he said. 'You can't cover them up.' Cassie, the prosecution's star witness in Combs' case, went through weeks of gut-wrenching testimony as she alleged that she was coerced into marathon 'freak off' sexual performances during her relationship with the producer. Cassie - who was heavily pregnant as she took the stand and has since given birth - claimed that Combs often beat and abused her during their 11-year relationship. During cross-examination, Diddy's defense attorneys brought up text messages from their relationship where Cassie wrote that she 'loved' the freak offs. The messages undercut the prosecution's argument, and a jury on Wednesday was not swayed by her testimony as it rejected the top charges against Combs in a stunning verdict. While Prosecutor Maurene Comey said the government will seek a 20-year maximum for Combs on charges of transportation to engage in prostitution, his defense tried to fight for less and requested he be freed on a $1 million bond. That request was denied, meaning he must remain in custody until his sentencing hearing on October 3. Cassie has since given birth with her husband Alex Fine. While she was not in attendance when the jury delivered the verdict on Wednesday, her attorney was. Following the verdict on Wednesday, Cassie's attorney praised her for 'paving the way' for the bombshell trial against one of the music industry's most powerful men.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Don't assume that junking juries will speed up justice
Proposals will be unveiled this week that could mean crimes now decided by juries are heard instead by a judge with two magistrates in a radical change to a centuries-old cornerstone of our justice system. No one would deny the present crisis in criminal justice. Delays are at record levels: nearly 80,000 cases are waiting to be heard and, without reform, the backlog is predicted to reach 100,000 by 2029. In December, Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, appointed Sir Brian Leveson, a highly experienced former Court of Appeal judge, to propose measures for reform. He was specifically tasked with exploring the idea of a new intermediate court between magistrates and the Crown Court, consisting of a district judge sitting with two magistrates. • Priest, 83, is arrested in Palestine Action protest in London This new court could lead to jury trial being scrapped for thousands of middle-ranking offences. At present defendants are allowed the choice of being tried by a judge and jury or by magistrates for such crimes as theft, common assault with a racial or religious aggravation, dangerous driving, some offences of criminal damage and drug possession. Defendants in fraud cases could also lose the right to jury trial. With certain offences, Leveson is expected to give defendants the right to ask for a judge-only trial. And if there is strong public disapproval of a crime, some may do just that. But many would surely prefer to wait and chance their arm with a jury and the higher prospect of acquittal. Meanwhile, lower-level offenders, whose crimes carry perhaps up to two years in jail, would lose the choice of jury trial altogether. • The judge who sentences criminals with a synthetic voice Is the state of the system now so dire that eroding the right to trial by one's peers is justified? Many believe it is when weighed against the injustice of serious crimes going unpunished through lengthy delay. But judges are already privately voicing concerns. A new court will cost money and training and need more district judges, magistrates and criminal lawyers who are prepared to do this doubtless lesser-remunerated work. Juries give no reasons for their verdicts; jury room deliberations are sacrosanct. Non-jury courts, however, will have to do so. There may be endless appeals, fresh delays and costs, defeating the whole object. Instead of jettisoning centuries-old rights, the existing system could be better funded to provide more judge-time and sittings. After all, the chronic lack of this, exacerbated by Covid, is what has led to the present crisis. Either way, more funding will be needed. But if the sacred cow of jury trial is to be sacrificed to expediency, the cull must be worth it. Frances Gibb is a former Times legal editor and host of The Lord Chancellors: Where Politics meets Justice podcast
