Woman Who Accused Bob Dylan Of Sexual Abuse In 1965 Drops Lawsuit

A woman who accused Bob Dylan of sexually abusing her in 1965 when she was 12 has dropped her lawsuit amid allegations that she destroyed key evidence.

The accuser, identified as “J.C.,” filed a lawsuit last August  alleging that the singer befriended her in April 1965, then plied her with drugs and alcohol and sexually abused her over a six-week period at his apartment in New York City’s Chelsea Hotel.

But the woman dropped her lawsuit on Thursday, one day after Dylan’s attorneys told the court she had still not produced “dozens of critical emails we know exist,” even after being threatened with sanctions, according to Billboard .

Those emails reportedly included discussions that cast doubt on her allegations. Dylan’s lead attorney, Orin Snyder, also told the judge there was reason to believe the accuser had destroyed the messages in question which Billboard pointed out was “a massive breach of the rules of litigation in any case.”

Initial reports of the lawsuit were greeted with skepticism by at least one Dylan scholar.

Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin, whose book, “The Double Life of Bob Dylan: A Restless, Hungry Feeling (1941-1966),” covers the period when the abuse allegedly happened in considerable detail, told HuffPost last August that the singer was only in New York for a day or two during the period when J.C. says the assault took place.

Manhattan Federal Judge Katherine Polk Failla dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the case has been permanently closed.

“This case is over. It is outrageous that it was ever brought in the first place,” Snyder said in a statement, calling the case a “lawyer-driven sham.”

HuffPost reached out to the accuser’s attorneys, who did not immediately respond.