Bassnectar Sex Abuse Case Headed to Trial After Judge Denies His Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit
The judge says the case, which accuses the DJ of sex with underage girls, has unresolved questions and must be decided by a jury.
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A federal judge is refusing to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing electronic producer Bassnectar of sexually abusing three underage girls, sending the long-running case to a jury trial.
In a ruling Thursday (Dec. 6), Judge Aleta Trauger dismissed some aspects of the case but said that the overall lawsuit against the DJ (whose real name is Lorin Ashton) would be resolved by a jury of his peers. A trial is currently scheduled for February.
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Attorneys for Bassnectar had made various arguments for why the case should be tossed out, including that he hadn’t known how old the accusers were and that they had lied about their ages. But in her order, Judge Trauger was unswayed.
Ruling on claims made by plaintiff Jenna Houston, the judge noted that she was “only sixteen” when they met and that Ashton was “obviously able to observe her in person,” meaning a jury could find that he had “recklessly disregarded the fact that Houston was underage during the first thirteen months of their sexual relationship.”
The judge cited deposition testimony from Ashton — in which he agreed that Houston “does not look like she’s 19 years old” in an old photo she allegedly emailed him, but later also said she looked “like 19, 20, 21” when they first met.
“A jury must resolve the question of whether Ashton deliberately disregarded obvious facts from which he should have known that Houston was still a minor when they met,” the judge wrote. “A reasonable jury could believe — based on photographs of Houston taken at or around the time she met Ashton and Ashton’s confusing testimony when he was confronted with such photos — that no reasonable person would have believed she was eighteen or older.”
Neither side immediately returned requests for comment on Friday (Dec. 6).
Thursday’s order came more than three years after the three women — Rachel Ramsbottom, Alexis Bowling and Houston — filed their lawsuit, accusing Ashton of using his “power and influence to groom and ultimately sexually victimize underage girls.”
The lawsuit, which accuses Ashton of sex trafficking, child pornography and negligence, claims that the star would invite minors to his shows, bring them to a hotel room and provide “large sums of cash and other items of value” in exchange for sex.
In her ruling Thursday, Judge Trauger tossed out certain elements of those allegations. She ruled that Ramsbottom in particular had failed to show that she received any payments after she turned 18 — meaning she could not accuse him of sex trafficking after that point. And she rejected claims that the DJ had used “force, fraud or coercion” on any of his alleged victims.
“The psychological force she alleges he exerted over her amounts to nothing other than a desire to please a famous man she clearly admired and whose approval she sought,” the judge wrote of Bowling’s accusations.
Ditto for Houston: “The conduct she identifies as coercive — conduct that allegedly manipulated her into loving and trusting him, making her afraid to do anything that would cause her to lose his affection — does not qualify,” the judge wrote. “Heartbreak is simply not the form of harm envisioned by the sex-trafficking statute.”
But the ruling still leaves Ashton facing most of the lawsuit’s allegations, including claims that he had sex trafficked them as minors by paying them in return for sex. The DJ’s attorneys strongly deny that anything given to the women was a payment, but the judge said a jury might see otherwise.
“There is a question of fact as to whether the ‘travel money,’ free concert tickets, and free airfare Houston received from Ashton were causally related to Ashton’s allegedly enticing Houston to have sex with him and to provide her the means of traveling to see him again while she was underage in order to have sex,” the judge wrote.
