James Dolan, owner of Knicks & Rangers, accused of sexual assault: Who is Kellye Croft?
James Dolan, the chairman of Madison Square Garden and owner of the New York Knicks, is facing a federal lawsuit filed by Kellye Croft.
The lawsuit alleges that Dolan pressured Croft into unwanted sexual encounters nearly a decade ago and facilitated an assault by Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood producer.
James Dolan Accused of Coercing Sex With Masseuse and Trafficking Sex for Weinstein
The woman, Kellye Croft, alleges that Dolan pressured her to have sex after a massage appointment while she was working on an Eagles tour in 2013. She alleges that Dolan ignored her resistance and then summoned her to his room several more times on the tour, pressuring her to have sex.
The suit also alleges that Dolan arranged for her to meet with Weinstein, who, she alleges, sexually assaulted her at the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills in 2014. The suit accuses Dolan of sex trafficking.
In the lawsuit:
filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California and obtained by ESPN, Kellye Croft says she was 27 and working as a licensed massage therapist when she met Dolan in fall 2013 while on a tour with a rock band, the Eagles. (Dolan’s band, JD & The Straight Shot, opened for the Eagles during the tour.)
During one encounter, the lawsuit alleges, Dolan became “extremely assertive, and pressured Ms. Croft into unwanted sexual intercourse with him.” In subsequent encounters, the lawsuit alleges, Croft was summoned to Dolan’s room, where he made “unwelcome advances toward Ms. Croft, and she felt obligated to submit to sex with him.”
Croft alleged that in January 2014, Dolan helped arrange for her to travel to Los Angeles to join the tour. There, Croft alleged, she met Weinstein at The Beverly Hills Hotel where Dolan was paying for her to stay. Weinstein, she alleged, introduced himself as one of Dolan’s “best friends,” then asked whether she was the massage therapist that Dolan had mentioned and previously praised.
She accused Weinstein of sexually assaulting her at the hotel, after which she informed Dolan, who allegedly responded by telling her that Weinstein was “a troubled person” with “serious issues.” The incident predated Weinstein being convicted for years of sexual abuse following investigative reports in 2017 by both The New York Times and The New Yorker.
Croft, now 38, is seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages.
“I have suffered so profoundly because of what James Dolan and Harvey Weinstein did to me years ago, and it was not an easy decision to come forward and seek justice,” she said in a statement. “But for me, to truly address my trauma, I need to seek accountability.”
Dolan, as executive chairman of Madison Square Garden Sports Corp., heads the NBA’s Knicks and NHL’s Rangers. His attorney, E. Danya Perry, said there is “absolutely no merit” to Croft’s allegations and references to Weinstein are “simply meant to inflame.”
“Kellye Croft and James Dolan had a friendship,” Perry said in a statement. “Bottom line, this is not a he said/she said matter and there is compelling evidence to back up our position. We look forward to proving that in court.”