NEW YORK
Hollywood director Bryan Singer, best known for his four
successful "X-Men" movies, has been accused in a lawsuit of sexually
assaulting a 17-year-old boy in 2003.
According to court documents filed Thursday in Seattle, in the
northwestern state of Washington, Singer is accused of sexually assaulting
Cesar Sanchez-Guzman during a party on a yacht owned by one of the director's
wealthy friends.
Singer offered to give the teen a tour of the yacht, then
allegedly lured him into a room, "shut the door and demanded that Cesar
perform oral sex," the court filing reads.
When the youth refused, "Singer forced him into acts of oral
and anal sex."
After the incident, Singer allegedly approached Sanchez-Guzman and
told him he was a Hollywood producer, saying "he could help Cesar get into
acting as long as Cesar never said anything about the incident."
Singer then allegedly "told Cesar that no one would believe
him if he ever reported the incident, and that he could hire people who are
capable of ruining someone's reputation."
In a statement released by Singer's lawyer to U.S. entertainment
media, the director "categorically denies these allegations and will
vehemently defend this lawsuit to the very end."
This latest allegation comes in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein
scandal which broke in October, unleashing a flood of sexual harassment
accusations against big-name personalities in the world of entertainment, news
and politics.
The case is being handled by a team of attorneys in collaboration
with Jeff Herman, a lawyer who also represents Kadian Noble, one of Weinstein's
alleged victims.
Singer, 52, had been accused of similar behavior with underage
teens in two earlier legal cases that were eventually dropped.
In 2014, an aspiring actor named Michael Egan sued Singer,
claiming that the director had sexually assaulted him. The case was eventually
dropped, and Egan pleaded guilty to fraud in an unrelated case.
Egan was also represented by Herman -- the lawyer who is working
on the Sanchez-Guzman case.
An earlier case in 1997 named Singer as a defendant in lawsuit by
a 14 year old who claimed he was forced to strip naked while filming a shower
scene. That case was also dropped.
Singer's directing credits include "The Usual Suspects"
(1995), "Superman Returns" (2006), and "Walkyrie" (2008),
as well as "X-Men" movies released in 2000, 2003, 2014 and 2016.
Singer was recently fired from the upcoming film "Bohemian
Rhapsody" -- a biopic on the life of the late Queen singer Freddie Mercury
-- just two weeks before filming ended following a series of unexplained
absences.
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