Man who accused late Paramount CEO of rape wants to drop his case
A man is backing away from his lawsuit that leveled a rape allegation against the late Brad Grey, the former chairman and chief executive of Paramount Pictures, and accused a former MTV executive of sexual assault.
Rovier Carrington, who has said he’s the great-grandson of “Three Stooges” actor Moe Howard, sued Paramount’s parent company Viacom Inc. in New York State Supreme Court in May. The suit said that Grey threatened in 2010 to ruin his budding entertainment industry career unless Carrington had sex with him, that Grey subsequently raped him the following year, and that Carrington was blacklisted from working with Viacom after he refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement about his alleged encounters with Grey.
Grey died in 2017.
The suit also accused producer Brian Graden of drugging and sexually assaulting Carrington a few years ago. Earlier in his career, Graden was MTV Networks president of programming.
Last week, Carrington sought to dismiss the suit without prejudice, according to a court filing. On Tuesday, Judge Katherine Polk Failla responded by telling Carrington to file an official motion to dismiss, according to another court document.
A Viacom spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Graden’s attorney, Larry Stein of law firm Russ August & Kabat, declined to comment.
Carrington could not be reached for comment. He had been seeking $100 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
When the 32-page complaint was first filed, Stein called it meritless and sensationalized. The suit “is particularly egregious as it attacks two respected executives, one of whom is an industry icon whose death prevents him from defending himself, and the other, who has had a long, sterling and unblemished career free of any implication of inappropriate behavior personally or professionally,” Stein said in a statement at the time.
The lawsuit appeared to begin crumbling in September, when Carrington’s lawyers, from the Landau Group, decided to withdraw from the case. Graden’s attorneys accused Carrington of basing his case on fabricated emails.
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