Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions of alleged sexual abuse that may be offensive to some readers or painful to survivors of sexual assault.
As Mike Tyson prepares to fight Jake Paul, his legal camp is preparing to fight a civil lawsuit in federal court accusing the former heavyweight champion of raping a woman more than 30 years ago.
While the initial lawsuit was filed in January 2023, the latest development surfaced in June when the woman who says Tyson brutally raped and sexually assaulted her in the early 1990s in the back of a limousine told the court she accidentally cited the wrong date of the alleged attack, according to court records reviewed by USA TODAY Sports.
Tyson has denied the allegations, court records show. USA TODAY Sports attempted to ask Tyson about the lawsuit Friday during an interview on video with the boxer. But Tyson’s publicist, Joann Mignano, interrupted, saying, “We’re not going to talk about that. Thank you. Next question.”
An amended complaint filed on the woman’s behalf says she was raped by Tyson on March 1, 1990, not March 1, 1991 as stated in her original complaint filed with the U.S. District Court Northern District of New York, court records show. The woman is seeking $5 million, according to court records.
Tyson, 58, was convicted in 1992 of raping Desiree Washington, who was an 18-year-old Miss Black America beauty-pageant contestant at the time of the attack. He served three years in prison.
His attorneys are planning to file opposition papers by Nov. 18 – three days after Tyson is set to fight Paul at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas – according to a a copy of an Oct. 3 letter written by the woman’s attorney to the magistrate judge handling the case.
The woman suing Tyson filed the lawsuit under the Adult Survivors Act, which was enacted in New York in May 2022 and allows alleged victims of sexual offenses for which the statute of limitations has expired one year to file suit.
The court denied application from the woman, Christi Pinto, to proceed anonymously. USA TODAY generally does not identify victims of alleged sex offenses.
No trial date has been set.
Darren Seilback, an attorney representing Pinto, on Monday declined to comment. Pinto did not respond to requests for comment USA TODAY Sports left by text, voicemail, email and Facebook.
Daniel S.L. Rubin, an attorney representing Tyson, did not respond to voicemails and emails from USA TODAY Sports requesting comment.
How could this issue impact the case?
The inconsistency in dates raises the issue of credibility, according to New York attorney Alan Sash, who said he has represented plaintiffs and defendants in cases involving alleged sex offenses but has no ties to this case.
“The defendant is going to say, ‘Look, she’s inconsistent with her dates, so perhaps that means it never happened,’ ” Sash told USA TODAY Sports. “And the plaintiff is going to say, ‘This event happened decades ago, so whether it was a certain day in 1991 and 1992, it’s kind of immaterial to the real issue of whether or not I was assaulted.’ ”
Sash also said he doesn’t think the inconsistency of dates will have bearing on the plaintiff filing an amended complaint.
Effie Blassberger, a New York attorney with the firm of Clayman Rosenberg Kirshner & Linder who is not involved in this case, said the issue over the incorrect date demonstrates challenges involved in Adult Survivors Act cases for the plaintiffs and defendants.
“A lot of the plaintiffs that we represent have extraordinary guilt because they were initially too fearful to report their assault,” said Blassberger, who is representing actress Julia Ormond in a civil lawsuit accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault in 1995. “Now, years later, the ASA and similar revival statutes provide these victims with the opportunity to hold their abusers and enablers accountable. In this case, where three decades have elapsed, it is understandable why the date in the complaint was incorrect, and that fact shouldn’t undermine the plaintiff’s credibility.”
But Blassberger also addresses “the defendant’s perspective,” saying, “Not only has the immense passage of time since 1990 or 1991 affected witnesses’ memories and the preservation of evidence, but now a year and half after the case was filed, Mike Tyson is learning … the alleged assault occurred on a different date.”
Why Mike Tyson’s attorney says he objects
Tyson’s attorney, Rubin, initially said the boxer would accept the amended complaint if Pinto provided an affidavit “explaining the good faith basis for the alleged amendment,” according to a letter written by Rubin filed with the court.
The objections, the attorney wrote, stemmed from subsequent depositions conducted with two witnesses Pinto testified “she reported the alleged rape to within weeks of the alleged rape.”
“Both of these witnesses have testified unequivocally that these reports were made to them shortly after March of 1991,” Rubin wrote in a letter dated July 25. “In addition, text messages, revealed for the first time at the deposition conducted today, contain multiple admissions of the Plaintiff – including after her own deposition where she testified unequivocally that the alleged rape occurred on March 1, 1991 – that she continued to believe the date was 1991.
“As a result of this newly acquired testimony and evidence, we respectfully must change our position as to the Plaintiff’s request to amend the Complaint and assert of our objection to any such amendment.”
What Christi Pinto says
Other than the date of the alleged attack, Pinto’s assertions have not changed since she filed an affidavit in December 2022.
She said she met Tyson at a dance club called September’s in Albany, New York.
“My friend and I were hanging out with him and his limousine driver,” she stated in the affidavit. “Tyson told us about a party and asked us to join him. My friend was going to drop off her car and Tyson said he would pick her up in the limousine.
“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.”
In the affidavit, Pinto stated she was raped in the early 1990s.
In a subsequent affidavit, filed Oct. 2, she stated, “When I first came forward and reported the rape by Mike Tyson to my attorneys, I advised them that I was not sure of the year of occurrence, but I knew it was in the early 1990s.”
Citing “severe psychological trauma” from the rape, Pinto said it was difficult to remember the exact details and surrounding facts of the rape. But she said she knew it took place on her birthday, March 1, and attempted to pinpoint the year before filing a federal complaint.
While being deposed in April, Pinto testified she was “certain” the rape took place March 1, 1991, according to the affidavit. But information her sister provided during a later deposition called the date into question, according to an affidavit. The affidavit was filed with the Supreme Court of New York in December 2022 before the matter ended up in federal court.
“I am now sure that the rape occurred on March 1, 1990,” Pinto stated.
Why is Christi Pinto suing now?
Weeks after the alleged rape, according to the complaint, Pinto said the owner of the night club where she met Tyson and a singer she’d spent time with that night asked if Tyson had been “inappropriate” with her.
“… but out of embarrassment and fear, the plaintiff told them no,” reads the complaint. “… Given Tyson’s infamous aggression and violence along with his wealth and fame, plaintiff did not report the attack to authorities out of fear that it would bring her unwanted attention and further harm.”
In the following years, the complaint notes, Tyson faced numerous allegations of rape and sexual assault from various women.
In November 1990, a jury in New York determined Tyson grabbed a woman’s breasts and buttocks in a dance club after she refused his advances, according to the Washington Post and several other news outlets. The jury awarded her $100 in compensatory damages and denied her punitive damages.
A second woman said Tyson grabbed her buttocks while dancing that same night, according to the New York Times.
In 1995, Tyson settled a sexual assault lawsuit brought by Phyllis Polaner, who in 1988 worked as a publicist for Robin Givens, Tyson’s first wife, according to the New York Times.
Tyson, who was released on parole in 1994 after serving three years for the rape of Washington, faced accusations of rape in 2001 from a woman in California and a woman in Nevada.
Prosecutors filed no charges in the California case. The District Attorney in Clark County, Nevada, said it was unclear if the sexual contact was consensual or forced.
In a lawsuit filed last year, the compaint in the current civil case in New York said the Adult Survivors Act “gave plaintiff new hope and the opportunity to obtain redress for her injuries and to demonstrate that even a man as powerful as Tyson can be held accountable under the law.”
Follow Josh Peter on social media @joshlpeter11
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers free, confidential, 24/7 support to survivors and their loved ones in English and Spanish at: 800.656.HOPE (4673) and Hotline.RAINN.org and en Español RAINN.org/es.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mike Tyson lawyer expected to file objection in rape civil lawsuit
