A California appeals court has revived a sexual assault lawsuit against Marilyn Manson involving his former assistant Ashley Walters.
On Wednesday (December 13th), California’s Second Appellate District ruled that Walters — Manson’s assistant from 2010 to 2011 — can sue the musician for sexual assault, overturning an earlier decision that stated Walters waited to long to file the initial lawsuit.
A lower court ruled last year that Walters’ case was barred by the statute of limitations, which requires the case to be filed within two years. However, the appeals court ruled that the case was still viable under California’s “Delayed Discovery” rule, which accounts for suppressed memories due to trauma. The judge of the original hearing had previously said there were not “sufficient facts” to invoke the Delayed Discovery rule.
Walters’ lawsuit claims that she was subjected her to “sexual exploitation, manipulation and psychological abuse” by Manson while she worked as his personal assistant.
“Until she received diagnosis and treatment, Walters [says she] was unable to remember the repressed events, and once she did recall them, she was unable to immediately identify these events as abuse,” the court wrote [via Billboard]. “These allegations of suppressed memories and psychological blocking are sufficient to withstand [dismissal].”
The alleged abuse is graphic in detail, with the lawsuit stating that Manson once whipped her and threw her against a wall in “a drug-induced rage.” She alleges that he also once forced her to stay awake for 48 hours by giving her cocaine and “offered” her sexually to friends and associates.
She also claims that her trauma was subconsciously suppressed until other women began to come forward with sexual-assault-related accusations and lawsuits against Manson, including his former fiancé Evan Rachel Wood, actress Esmé Bianco, and model Ashley Morgan Smithine.
Manson has since sued Wood for defamation, a case that was mostly thrown out under California’s anti-SLAPP free-speech protections, while Smithline rescinded her allegations, claiming she was manipulated to come forward by Wood, and the case with Bianco was settled earlier this year.
