Bob Dylan’s Team Seek ‘Monetary Sanctions’ From Lawyers In Abuse Case

August 12, 2022

The legal team for Bob Dylan have called for penalties to be issued against the lawyers of an unnamed woman who accused the singer of historical sexual abuse. The case in question was officially dropped last month, just days after Dylan’s legal team accused the plaintiff of destroying evidence and “irretrievably” damaging the case’s integrity.

The lawsuit was initiated in August 2021, with the woman known only as J.C. alleging that Dylan had abused her between April and May 1965 when she was 12 years old. The plaintiff’s lawyers alleged that Dylan had plied her with alcohol and drugs over a period of six weeks in his New York City apartment and “exploited his status as a musician by grooming J.C. to gain her trust and to obtain control over her as part of his plan to sexually molest and abuse J.C.”

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While some music historians claimed that Dylan was too busy at this point in his career to have remained anywhere for six weeks, the musician’s lawyers dismissed the case as nothing more than a “brazen shakedown masquerading as a lawsuit.” Ultimately, the case was dropped in late July, with Dylan’s team expressing “relief” that the plaintiff had dropped the “lawyer-driven sham”.

However, as Billboard reports, Dylan’s lawyers have now requested “monetary sanctions” from the plaintiff’s lawyers, Daniel Isaacs and Peter Gleason. The request was officially made in a letter to a judge last week, with the head of Dylan’s legal team, Orin Snyder, citing their conduct as “brazen”, and noting they should never have brought the lawsuit to trial in the first place.

“Mr. Isaacs and Mr. Gleason should not have brought this action — accusing defendant of a heinous crime — if they did not intend to responsibly litigate it,” Snyder wrote in the letter. “It is more than appropriate to hold them accountable.” The figure sought by Dylan’s team remains unclear, but Billboard suggests a likely outcome would be Isaacs and Gleason repaying the legal fees accrued by Dylan throughout the life of the case.

Isaacs has responded to Snyder’s request, claiming that the case had been “brought in good faith and with the intent of responsibility litigating the matter.” He continued, “At no point did either Mr. Gleason or I wilfully withhold discovery or engage in discovery misconduct.

“We attempted to comply as best we could given the circumstances, including plaintiff suffering PTSD, which was exacerbated when her identity was illegally made public following the commencement of this action.”