Former CAA executive accused of trafficking by woman who says she was kept as a ‘sex slave'

Los Angeles Times

a day ago

An unnamed woman this week sued prominent British soccer agent Jonathan Barnett, accusing him of raping her and keeping her as a 'sex slave.'
The woman alleged in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles that Barnett coerced her into becoming his 'sex slave' and used his company's resources to aid in his control over her.
The woman, who was referred to in the lawsuit as 'Jane Doe,' also sued Hollywood talent firm Creative Artists Agency and sports agency CAA Stellar, where Barnett served as executive chairman.
Barnett denied the allegations.
'The claims made in today's complaint against me have no basis in reality and are untrue,' Barnett said in a statement. 'We will vigorously defend this lawsuit through the appropriate legal process. I am looking forward to being entirely vindicated and exonerated.'
CAA said it first learned of the woman's allegations through a press inquiry in 2024 and settlement demands from the woman's attorney.
'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.'
Barnett exited Stellar in February 2024.
The woman, who currently resides in Australia, said Barnett had initially promised her employment at CAA Stellar and paid for her to move her children from Australia to the United Kingdom as part of the employment package, according to the lawsuit. But after she moved to the U.K., she alleged she was 'trafficked, threatened, tortured, and held' in bondage in different locations throughout the world, including L.A., from 2017 to 2023, the lawsuit said.
The woman was introduced to Barnett by a friend in the mid-1990s and then reconnected with Barnett in 2017 after he sent her a message on LinkedIn, the lawsuit said. After the two met for lunch in London in 2017, Barnett offered her an employment package that included payment for moving expenses, sponsorship of her and her two children's visas, school tuition for her children, housing and a starting salary of 4,000 pounds and a summer bonus, the lawsuit said.
After she moved to London, Barnett asked to meet the woman at a hotel room, where Barnett allegedly told her that he 'owned' her and to call him 'my Master,' the lawsuit said. Then he ordered her to remove her clothes and later struck her down and raped her, according to the lawsuit.
'Realizing 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.
The complaint alleged that Barnett referred to the woman as 'slave' as well as other demeaning words like 'dog' or 'whore,' and demanded she send videos of herself doing degrading acts, including drinking her own urine, licking the toilet with her mouth, eating her own feces and whipping herself as 'punishment.' The woman said Barnett punched, kicked, stomped on her fingers and whipped her, insisting she send him videos and photos of the wounds he inflicted to his company phone, the lawsuit said.
'To this day, Ms. Doe still has urinary tract infections, skin rashes, mouth ulcers, and bleeds from her vagina in an abnormal way as a result of Barnett's horrific and barbaric torture and abuse,' the lawsuit said.
Barnett has been a leading figure in the sports representation business. In 2019, he ranked as No. 1 on Forbes' most powerful sports agent list. A year later, the magazine named him the world's top soccer agent, negotiating $1.42 billion in active contracts and transfer fees.
He negotiated deals for boxers — clients have included the former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis — before launching Stellar Sports with co-founder David Manasseh in 1992. The two men represented cricket players and later signed prominent soccer athletes such as Glen Johnson and Peter Crouch.
Stellar eventually became the world's largest soccer agency, with a roster of more than 800 athletes when it sold to talent agency ICM Partners in 2020. Now owned by CAA, the firm helped make CAA the most valuable sports agency on Forbes' 2022 list.
Barnett had served as CAA Stellar's executive chairman until last year.
The lawsuit alleged that CAA, which acquired ICM in June 2022 and other defendants 'turned a blind eye' to emails and other communications on company-owned devices and company-monitored accounts where he referred to her as 'slave' and told her to 'get back to work.'
CAA Stellar's accounting firm BSG Valentine had guaranteed the apartment leases where he kept the woman and a Stellar assistant assisted Barnett in dropping off payments to the woman, the lawsuit said. During the workday, Stellar drivers would bring Barnett to where the woman was staying and wait for him while he beat and raped her, the lawsuit alleged.
In 2020, Stellar was negotiating its sale to ICM Partners. In January, July and September of that year, Stellar wired payments to the woman worth 20,400 pounds, the lawsuit said.
After Stellar was acquired, the company posted on its website a modern slavery statement that said ICM Stellar Sports is committed 'to ensure that modern slavery and human trafficking are not taking place anywhere within either our business,' the lawsuit said.