According to court documents, the plaintiff voluntarily dropped the case Thursday. Manhattan federal judge Katherine Polk Failla officially dismissed the filing “with prejudice,” meaning the case cannot be refiled.
Dylan’s attorneys alleged Wednesday that the plaintiff failed to produce court-ordered documents, including text messages and emails. Dylan’s attorneys said the plaintiff, now a woman in her 60s, identified in the lawsuit by the initials “JC,” had “destroyed evidence directly relevant to the key allegations of fact in this litigation.”
Orin Snyder, Dylan’s lead attorney, said: “This case is closed. It’s outrageous that it was brought up in the first place.” He added that the case was “a lawyer-sponsored farce” and that he was pleased to be hired.
In the 2021 lawsuit, Dylan was accused of befriending the plaintiff “in order to break down her inhibitions to sexually abuse her, which he did, coupled with the provision of drugs, alcohol and threats of physical violence, thereby.” she was emotionally scarred and psychologically damaged every day.”
The lawsuit alleged the abuse took place at Dylan’s Chelsea Hotel apartment in New York City when the plaintiff was 12 years old.
In a statement following the filing last year, a spokesman for Dylan said, “The 56-year-old’s claim is false and is vigorously defended.”
CNN has reached out to plaintiff’s attorneys for comment.
Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1940 in Duluth, Minnesota.
He has sold more than 125 million records over the course of his career. His best known songs include “The Times They Are a-Changin'”, “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Blowin’ in the Wind”.
In 2008, Dylan won a Pulitzer Prize Special Mention for “his profound influence on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of exceptional poetic power”. In 2016 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for “creating new forms of poetic expression within the great American song tradition”.