Boxing legend, Mike Tyson has been accused of raping a woman after the two met at an Albany nightclub in the early 1990s, according to the unidentified plaintiff’s $5 million lawsuit filed earlier this month.
The woman claims Tyson raped her in a limousine, resulting in ‘physical, psychological and emotional injury’ in the years since then.
In a statement obtained by DailyMail, the claimant said;
‘I got in Tyson’s limousine to pick up my friend from her house. Tyson immediately started to touch me and attempted to kiss me.
“I told him no several times and asked him to stop, but he continued to attack me. He then pulled my pants off and violently raped me.”
The woman’s filing does not include a specific date for the attack other than the ‘early 1990s’ – around the same time that beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington said Tyson raped her in Indianapolis.
Tyson was convicted of raping Washington on February 10, 1992, and served three years in prison.
Legal action in New York was filed under the state’s Adult Survivors Act, which also gives sexual victims a one-year window to file lawsuits on assaults that happened years or even decades ago.
The woman is seeking to maintain her anonymity because, she said, publication of her name ‘would certainly pose a risk to me of further mental harm, harassment, ridicule or personal embarrassment.’
‘As a result of Tyson’s rape, I suffered and continue to suffer from physical, psychological and emotional injury,’ read the filing. ‘I have experienced feelings of guilt, loss of self-respect, shame, embarrassment, sadness, anger, depression, anxiety, violent tendencies, drug and alcohol addiction, so the woman said.
‘I have developed lifelong problems including but not limited to issues with sex, and with being touched as a result of the rape. I have been unable to maintain and/or develop healthy relationships with men or anyone in general. I have experienced extreme emotional suffering including but not limited to nightmares, panic attacks and flashbacks.’
The woman’s lawayer, Darren Seilback, said in a separate filing that his office did not simply take the woman by her word but investigated her allegations and determined that they are “highly credible”
Tyson, 56, won adulation as the undisputed world heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990, but his life outside the ring has been turbulent.
His former wife, actress Robin Givens, said in their divorce papers that thier late-1980s marriage was being characterized by “unprovoked rages of violence and destruction”.
He was also accused of groping his former photographer.
Tyson allegedly tried to grab the breast of award-winning photographer Lori Grinker in the early 1980s, but rather than denying the claim, he said the two had a consensual sexual relationship starting when he was ‘around 17’ and she was in her mid 20s.
