Six additional women have come forward with claims that the celebrity couple, T.I. and Tiny (real names Clifford and Tameka Harris) sexually assaulted and abused them says a new report in The Daily Beast.
According to New York-based attorney Tyrone A. Blackburn, who is already representing 11 women who’ve accused the couple and members of their entourage of assault and abuse, six more women have reached out to him alleging the same. The women came to Blackburn after he sent out letters to officials in Georgia and California asking for criminal investigations into the claims.
Blackburn told The Daily Beast, “If I was a prosecutor, I’d have brought charges already.”
Eight of the women claim they were assaulted, drugged or kidnapped by the couple or an associate, Three others, including a male victim, claim there were “terroristic threats” made against them. As was first reported by The New York Times, the accusations of assault range from 2005 through 2017.
Blackburn’s letter states, “These women are unaware of each other, and without any leading on my part, they recount eerily similar events of sexual abuse, forced ingestion of illegal narcotics, kidnapping, terroristic threats and false imprisonment.”
He adds, “This is very sensitive, and I do not want the Harrises to get off on a technicality because I may have disclosed something prematurely or because something may have gotten out. For me, the goal is to get justice for these women, hands down. This is not about money. This is not about clout.”
His letters include detailed accounts from five women including a former member of the military, an exotic dancer and a high schooler who interned at T.I.’s record label, Grand Hustle.
One alleged victim, who served in the Air Force, says she met the couple at a club in Los Angeles in 2005 and at one point, she was offered a sip of Tiny’s drink, after which she felt “lightheaded and dizzy.” Later she recalls Tiny “rubbing her buttock” to give her a “back butt massage,” and T.I. allegedly trying to put his foot in her vagina. According to the letter, “she told him, no, and the next thing she remembers was waking up naked on the couch with a towel thrown over her with a very sore vagina.”
The 17-year-old accuser, who interned in 2006 recalls being left “naked on a bed… bleeding from her vagina. She also felt discomfort in her anus,” the letter states. It goes on to say that she was later taken to a hospital where she was treated for “trauma to her anal cavity due to intense anal penetration.”
In a statement to The New York Times, the lawyer for the couple, Steve Sadow, says that his clients “deny in the strongest possible terms these baseless and unjustified allegations.”
The Daily Beast contacted Sadow for further comment on this matter and Sadow responded by email, ‘respectfully, when Blackburn exposes his would-be accusers to the light of day by revealing their names, I will have a real comment. Hiding their identities makes it impossible for me to do so.”
For those who believe Blackburn’s clients are in this for the money, he offers the following, “This is all about holding the Harrises accountable for their actions, full stop.”
