Actor Vin Diesel has responded to a sexual battery lawsuit filed Thursday by his former assistant.
Diesel’s lawyer Bryan Freedman said in a statement that his client “categorically denies this claim in its entirety.”
“This is the first he has ever heard about this more than 13-year-old claim made by a purportedly 9-day employee,” Freedman said in the statement, per USA Today. “There is clear evidence which completely refutes these outlandish allegations.”
In the lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles and obtained by the outlet, Asta Jonasson alleged that the “Fast and the Furious” actor sexually assaulted her in the fall of 2010 while filming “Fast Five” in Atlanta.
The lawsuit says Jonasson was hired by the actor’s production company, One Race, to work for him as an assistant, where her role included organizing and attending parties with him and making sure photos included his longtime girlfriend, Paloma Jimenez.
Jonasson alleges that one night in September 2010, she was asked to wait for Diesel in his suite at the St. Regis hotel while he entertained hostesses from a club. She claims that after the other women left, Diesel grabbed her wrists and forced her onto the bed.
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She pulled away and allegedly told Diesel she wanted to leave, but she claims he then began groping her and placing his hands all over her body. Jonasson said she was scared to “forcibly refuse her superior.” She claims when Diesel moved to pull down her underwear, she screamed and ran away.
The lawsuit says that Diesel subsequently pinned her against the wall and masturbated, while “terrified, Ms. Jonasson closed her eyes, trying to dissociate from the sexual assault and avoid angering him,” per USA Today. She claims to have been fired several hours later after just two weeks on the job.
Greenberg Gross, the firm representing Jonasson, said in a statement: “We are proud to represent Ms. Jonasson and hold accountable Vin Diesel and those who allowed and covered up his sexual assault. The law exists to protect those who have been wronged, no matter how powerful or famous the defendant is. Sexual harassment in the workplace will never stop if powerful men are protected from accountability.”
Jonasson also said that the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements empowered her to file the lawsuit in an attempt to “reclaim her agency and justice for the suffering she endured at the hands of Vin Diesel and One Race.”