More than three decades after Rita Butler Barrett says she was r*ped, Jermaine Jackson is fighting to clear his name.
Jermaine, a founding member of the Jackson 5, filed new court papers on Tuesday, June 2, denying Rita’s allegations and asking a judge to wipe away a $6.5 million default judgment in her lawsuit. The judgment was entered after Jermaine did not respond to the case for more than two years.
Rita, a music contractor who worked with Jermaine in the late 1980s, sued him in 2023 for sexual assault and battery, and the lawsuit alleged that in the spring of 1988, Jermaine arrived at her Los Angeles-area home without warning, forced his way through the door, and r*ped her, per Billboard.
Jermaine denied those claims in a court declaration and said he did not know about the lawsuit soon enough to respond.
“I did not know this lawsuit was pending in time to respond,” he wrote. “I did not r*pe plaintiff. I did not sexually assault plaintiff. I deny the material allegations of the complaint, deny liability and dispute damages. I request the opportunity to defend this case on the merits.”
Jermaine’s attorney, Bret Lewis, is arguing that the default judgment should be vacated because the singer was not properly served. According to the filing, Rita’s lawyers tried to serve Jermaine at an Encino address and later published notices in the Los Angeles Times. Lewis said those efforts were not enough because Jermaine lives overseas in Bahrain and changed his legal name in 2013 to Jermaine LaJuane Jacksun.
“This is not a case of a defendant ignoring papers actually received,” Lewis wrote. “It is a case of constructive notice stacked on constructive notice, under an obsolete former legal name, despite public records showing defendant’s correct legal name and plaintiff’s own service evidence pointing away from California and toward an overseas location.”
Jermaine rose to global fame with his brothers in the Jackson 5 and later released solo hits including “Daddy’s Home,” “Let’s Get Serious” and “Do What You Do.”
His request is set to go before Judge Elaine W. Mandel at a June 30 hearing in Los Angeles.
