L.A. Reid In Pre-Settlement Talks With Sexual Assault Accuser

L.A. Reid and his legal team are in talks with sexual assault accuser Drew Dixon and her legal team to discuss the next steps in the case. According to court documents obtained by AllHipHop, which were filed on Friday (March 1) with the United States District Court Southern District of New York, mediation is set for March 29. The paperwork marks the plaintiff and defendant’s first monthly “Joint Discovery Status Report” updating the court on the parties’ progress in discovery.

The docs also show Dixon issued subpoenas to Artista Records, Sony Music Entertainment and Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG). Reid, on the other hand, has sent out subpoenas to Dixon’s medical providers, including MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Amarilis Rivera and Dr. Valerie Bryant.

Dixon, who was a former executive at Arista, filed the suit in November 2023. She claims Reid assaulted her not once but twice in 2001. The suit alleges Reid groped, kissed and penetrated Dixon without her consent on a company trip and during a ride home from an event in New York. She accuses Reid of stalling her career after the alleged assaults.

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Dixon accused Def Jam Recordings co-founder Russell Simmons of being a sexual abuser in 2017. She also named Reid as another industry heavyweight who allegedly sexually harassed her in the 2000s.

“It was a quid pro quo: ‘I have power, you want access, sleep with me — or I’m going to be really mean to you the next day,'” she said at the time. “‘And there will be consequences.'”

Subsequently, Dixon is suing Reid for sexual battery/assault (Count I), false imprisonment (Count II), intentional infliction of emotional distress (Count III) and gender motivated violence act (Count IV). In January 2024, Reid’s attorneys—Bobbi C. Sternheim and Shawn Holley—asked Honorable Valerie E. Caproni to dismiss Counts II and III of Dixon’s complaint, strike certain statutory references in Count I and grant such other and further relief deemed “just and proper.”

Dixon’s complaint stems from two incidents: one in January 2001 and another that allegedly occurred several months later that same year. Dixon alleges “ongoing sexual harassment and career sabotage.” She’s using the New York Adult Survivors Act (“ASA”) and the New York City Gender Motivated Violence Act (“GMVA”) to advance time-barred claims. Each of those laws revive the statute of limitations to permit civil actions related to certain sexual offenses.