A lawsuit was filed against NBA star Zion Williamson on Friday, accusing the New Orleans Pelicans player of raping and physically abusing a woman who claims they dated from 2018 to 2023.
The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by a woman who will proceed anonymously with the suit as Jane Doe. She accused Williamson, 24, of raping her in his Beverly Hills home in September 2020, and again at an unspecified location in Beverly Hills a month later.
In a statement, Williamson’s attorney, Michael A. Balascio, described the woman’s lawsuit as an “extortion attempt.”
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and we unequivocally deny them,” he said. “The allegations contained in the complaint are categorically false and reckless.”
The NBA and the Pelicans did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In the first incident, the lawsuit alleges, Williamson raped the woman when she tried going to sleep. It states that when she attempted to go to sleep, Williamson called her “stuck up” and “a b****” and told her she could not go to sleep until she had sex with him.
When she refused, Williamson allegedly “pinned Plaintiff down on the bed with her hands behind her back and raped her,” the lawsuit states.
In the second incident, the lawsuit states, Williamson allegedly raped the woman when she told him that she wanted to go to San Diego to visit a friend. It alleges that Williamson then “picked her up, threw her down to the ground, and pinned her shoulders down,” before assaulting her.
The lawsuit alleges that Williamson took the woman’s phone shortly after both encounters for an unspecified period so that she could not report the assaults.
It alleges that the incidents were not isolated, and that Williamson “continued to abuse, rape, assault, and batter” the woman in multiple states, including California, Louisiana and Texas, until the relationship ended in 2023.
The lawsuit also alleges that Williamson threatened to pay his security to shoot her “in the head while the security guard was present and carrying a loaded firearm multiple times in Louisiana between 2020 and 2023.” Williamson also threatened to have the woman’s parents killed, the lawsuit states.
Williamson currently plays the power forward position for the Pelicans. He was the first overall NBA draft pick in 2019 after playing for the Duke Blue Devils in college.
NBC News’ Austin Mullen contributed.
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