Key Takeaways
- N.O.R.E., born Victor Santiago, is denying the sexual assault lawsuit Carmen Bryan filed against him this week, with his attorney Leonard Lesser calling her account entirely false.
- Carmen Bryan's complaint alleges Santiago forced himself on her at a Manhattan nightclub in May 1999 while he was promoting his album ‘Melvin Flynt - Da Hustler.’
- Lesser argues Bryan never mentioned Santiago or the alleged incident in either of her memoirs, ‘It's No Secret’ or ‘Life After Child Support: When The Checks Stop Coming.’
- Bryan filed her 20-page civil complaint under the New York City Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act, seeking compensatory and emotional distress damages.
In a post shared on his Instagram Stories, N.O.R.E., real name Victor James Santiago Jr., denied the sexual assault allegations leveled against him in a lawsuit filed by Carmen Bryan, an entrepreneur who has a child with Nas.
“The allegations by Ms. Bryan about invented interaction with Mr. Santiago from nearly three decades ago are entirely false,” reads the statement, which is attributed to N.O.R.E’s lawyer, Leonard F. Lesser. “It should be noted that Ms. Bryan has a long history of making salacious and contested claims about public figures. This includes a 2006 ‘tell-all’ book where she provided excruciating detail about her personal vendettas and sexual encounters with celebrities.”
The statement noted that her 2018 “tell-all” book, Life After Child Support: When the Checks Stop Coming, made no mention of N.O.R.E. or the allegations. “We will defend Mr. Santiago from this legally groundless lawsuit and look forward to exposing Ms. Bryan’s fabrications in court as we clear Mr. Santiago’s good name,” the statement concludes.
In the lawsuit, Bryan accused N.O.R.E. of sexually assaulting her during a purported encounter at a crowded Manhattan nightclub in 1999.
“He approached her while visibly intoxicated. He did so without invitation, permission, or consent,” reads the lawsuit. “What began as an unwanted approach immediately became a sexual assault. In the thick of a crowded nightclub, with music pounding, bodies moving, and patrons close enough to see, Santiago forced himself onto Ms. Bryan.”
She alleged that he used “significant physical force” and committed “an act of non-consensual digital penetration.” She also claimed that she pleaded with him to stop multiple times, but she was “overpowered” by the rapper. The incident allegedly only stopped “after third parties intervened.”
Bryan claimed that he later apologized to her, saying he didn’t recognize who she was at the time, and that she also told Jay-Z about the purported assault, and the Brooklyn rapper “threatened to confront” N.O.R.E. She said that she insisted that he not do such a thing, out of fear of “escalation.”
She is seeking unspecified compensatory, emotional distress, and punitive damages, and is requesting a jury trial.
