NY judge dismisses Kesha’s sexual assault case against Dr Luke

A judge in the US dismissed a plea by US singer Kesha to free her from a contract with producer Dr Luke whom she has accused of raping and tormenting her emotionally. Kesha is in contract with Dr Luke’s Kemosabe Records which is a part of the Sony Music conglomerate. The judge rejected her lawsuit on largely technical grounds, ruling in one count that Kesha could not seize on the city’s laws against hate crimes.

Kesha failed to prove that Dr Luke “harboured animus toward women or was motivated by gender animus when he allegedly behaved violently toward Kesha”, Judge Shirley Kornreich wrote. “Every rape is not a gender-motivated hate crime,” she wrote.

Read: Taylor Swift helps out Kesha by giving $250K to fight Dr Luke

The lawsuit did not ask the court to look into the substance of the assault allegations. Kesha said that Dr Luke, whose real name is Lukasz Gottwald, drugged and raped her in 2005 and 2008. The 29-year-old singer, whose full name is Kesha Rose Sebert, did not press charges at the time and said in the lawsuit that Dr Luke threatened to destroy her career if she went public.

Watch Adele support Kesha in her fight against Dr Luke:

But the judge said the court did not have jurisdiction, with Kesha living in California and entering the contract with the New York-based label after the alleged violence occurred. “Kesha failed to plead that any of the alleged discrimination occurred in New York State or City,” the judge wrote, adding that the statute of limitations had likely passed in any case on rape charges.

Read: Kesha writes an emotional Facebook post on her fight with Dr Luke

The decision deals a major blow to Kesha although she had also filed suit in California. Kesha has enjoyed an outpouring of support after the New York court in February refused to issue an initial injunction on the contract. Adele and Taylor Swift, two of the top women in music, have both publicly backed Kesha and feminist protesters have rallied outside Sony Music’s New York headquarters.

Dr Luke -- who has worked with stars including Katy Perry -- has denied the allegations and filed a counter-suit accusing Kesha of making false claims to get out of the contract.

Read: Sony offered me freedom only if I said Dr Luke didn’t rape me, says Kesha

Kesha recently said that she was offered a settlement in which she would “lie” and apologize for saying she was raped. “I will not take back the truth. I would rather let the truth ruin my career than lie for a monster ever again,” she wrote on Instagram.

Kesha’s 2009 debut album, Animal, went to number one on the US chart and generated the major hit Tik Tok, co-written with Dr Luke.