Vin Diesel, movie star mega Rich, super famous sued now for alleged sexual battery of an assistant. Former assistant Vin Diesel sued the actor on Thursday, [00:00:16] alleging that in 2010 he pinned her against a wall inside a hotel suite and pleasured himself in front of her. Those are the details, there are more details emerging. The plaintiff Asta Jonasson, [00:00:32] stating that she was hired by Diesel's company, one race, to work for the actor on location in Atlanta, where Fast Five was in production. The suit describes Jonasson as a recent film school program graduate at the time, [00:00:48] whose job responsibilities included organizing parties, accompanying diesel to parties, and ensuring that she was in close physical proximity to him in case photographs were taken of him with women when he attended events without his longtime girlfriend, Vanity Fair with the reporting here. [00:01:08] The suit alleges that late one night in September 2010, Jonasson was asked to wait in Diesel's suite at the St. Regis hotel while he entertained hostesses he had brought back from a club. Once the other women were gone, the lawsuit claims, Diesel, quote, grabbed [00:01:23] Miss Jonasson's wrists, one with each of his hands, and pulled her onto the bed. She asked him to stop, escaped his grasp, and waited by the front door of the suite for him to leave. Instead, the lawsuit says, he again approached Jonasson, [00:01:40] began to grope her breast and kiss her chest despite her pleas to stop. Miss Jonasson was afraid to more forcibly refuse her supervisor, knowing that getting him out of that room was both crucial to her personal safety and job security. [00:01:56] The suit continues, but this hope died when Vin Diesel dropped to his knees, pushed Miss Jonasson's dress up toward her waist and inappropriately touched her body, running his hands over Miss Jonasson's upper legs, including her inner thighs. [00:02:13] He tried to pull down her underwear and she screamed and ran toward the bathroom, the suit alleges. Jonasson alleges that Diesel pressed against the wall and forced her to touch his private parts, then began to pleasure himself. Miss Jonasson was unable to escape and closed her eyes, [00:02:30] scared of angering Vin Diesel by rejecting him further and trying to disassociate, wishing this assault would end, the suit alleges. Hours later, according to the lawsuit, Samantha Vincent, Diesel's sister and [00:02:46] the president of his company, called Jonasson and fired her. It was clear to her that she was being fired because she was no longer useful, and Diesel had used her to fulfill his sexual desires and she had resisted his sexual assaults, the suit alleges. [00:03:05] Ms Jonasson felt like she was a piece of trash to be discarded. Ms Jonasson felt helpless, her self esteem demolished, and she questioned her own skills and whether a successful career would require her to trade her body for advancement. [00:03:22] Again, variety with these explosive details, the suit alleges that a few days before the diesel incident, Jonasson was propositioned by another supervisor at his company, one race. According to the complaint, the supervisor summoned her to his hotel room [00:03:37] at the St Regis, took off his shirt, got into bed and said, come here. Appalled, Miss Jonasson immediately exited the room and the hotel, the suit states. In addition to the sexual battery allegation, the suit also states claims of gender discrimination, [00:03:55] wrongful termination, retaliation, and negligent supervision. Jonasson filed the sexual battery lawsuit under California's Sexual Abuse and Cover up Accountability Act. It's a 2022 law that created a one year window to file certain [00:04:12] suits that would otherwise be outside of the statute of limitations. For the suit to qualify, the defendant must have engaged in an attempt to cover up at least one previous sexual assault allegation. [00:04:27] Let's get Diesel's attorney, if we can. Here's the statement issued Thursday afternoon denying these allegations. Let me be very clear. Vin Diesel categorically denies this claim in its entirety, Freedman said. [00:04:42] This is the first he has ever heard about this more than 13 year old claim made by a purportedly nine day employee. There's clear evidence which completely refutes these outlandish allegations. Brian Freedman, Ben Diesel's attorney, again, variety with the reporting here. [00:05:02] Brian Freedman is a powerful attorney, represents a lot of big names and is a tough cookie, okay. So Vin Diesel keeps lawyers, I'm sure, on retainer. He's hired this powerful lawyer to defend him. [00:05:19] And again, he's denying all of this. I wasn't there, you weren't there. Here we go again. And I guess I wanna start with seeking your insight into where we should begin, where we should even weigh in as a public who was not party to this. [00:05:40] But it is long standing now that we've had to go through this kind of thing with powerful men and young women. >> Speaker 1: Right, I think that a good place to start is what she was hired to do [00:05:55] in the first place for his company, which was attend parties in case he's photographed with women that weren't his longtime girlfriend, which heavily implies they wanted to be able to appoint to a woman and say, this is simply an employee. [00:06:10] He's not cheating on his girlfriend, which is a bizarre reason to hire somebody in the first place. Sort of pointing in the direction of her job, being sexualized from the start. And this is, as you mentioned, a young woman fresh out of film school who's [00:06:28] looking for an opportunity in this industry. And she believes she found one only for her to allegedly be the victim of this very brutal sexual assault at the hands of a man significantly more powerful than her. I would like to point out that these types of laws that give victims of sexual [00:06:46] harassment, sexual assault, the ability to sue outside of the statute of limitations are so important. And we saw the same thing out of New York. They allowed people outside of the statute of limitations to sue for a year, and we saw a lot of lawsuits against powerful men. [00:07:04] And a lot of the victims in those cases were very young at the time that the alleged assaults occurred. And it's important to note that especially they're disproportionately less powerful than the people who allegedly perpetrated the assaults against them. [00:07:21] And it might take them quite a bit of time to come to terms with what happened to them, to recognize that it was sexual assault, to move past the stage of blaming yourself for being a victim, to even feel like you're in a good [00:07:36] position to acknowledge what happened to you and to take legal recourse. So I think that these types of laws are really valuable, and I'd like to see them expanded all across this country so that we get more victims. [00:07:52] The ability to seek justice, especially when it takes some victims a long time to process that. And she was at the time, a very young girl who lost a job after only nine days. And I'll just know from my personal perspective, Vin Diesel is someone who [00:08:10] has a history of well being interviewed by female journalists and female reporters being overly sexual in those interviews, in sexualizing the people interviewing him. That's not to say that that's necessarily evidence that the allegations are true, [00:08:26] but he's been able to get away with that behavior on camera for years when these should be professional interviews and he should behave, conduct himself in a professional manner. I just think that goes to show how much this industry protects men who [00:08:42] are inappropriate towards women. >> Speaker 1: Yeah, and it might speak to society as well, devil's advocate, the Diesel. Others in Hollywood would say, well, I'm a sex symbol, I'm an action star. I'm an international movie star, okay? [00:08:57] I can't walk down the street. There's certain things that are protocol for me that an average Joe perhaps wouldn't understand. I'm so tired, though, ray of people, mostly men, but also women, pointing to, well, why didn't you come forward? [00:09:14] How ignorant are you, this is 2023. We're almost 2024, right? How ignorant are you? People want to be able to realize their dreams, to work support themselves. And they sometimes just say cost benefit, okay? [00:09:33] No one's going to believe me. I'm gonna get called names, I'm gonna be first and foremost a gold digger, probably a slut. That's what we do to people, it's disgusting. So if you don't get it, I suggest you pick up, I don't know, a psychology book, read some old court cases, something, or talk to somebody close to you, [00:09:52] and I guarantee that one of those women will tell you. It happened to me. I remember being a young person and someone who was sued and paid out their company at the time. Yet another record settlement, and he would summon me to his office. [00:10:10] He was a very blowhard man, okay? Prime time is when he came on. And I didn't ask you to put your tongue down my throat. I was fresh out of grad school. Didn't ask you for any of that. We'll do it live, okay? [00:10:26] I didn't ask you for any of that and I didn't come forward, okay? And perhaps it's unfair all these years later to allude to it, but it's my truth, and I'm entitled to my story, too. This woman's entitled to her story. I don't know if it's true. Let me ask you this, we've heard this so many times. [00:10:43] There are regulations, there are strikes, there are unions in Hollywood. Put your legal cap on and tell me, is it time for assistance? And these supportive staff members, not just on set, these superstars and even their less known or [00:11:01] less successful counterparts have these assistants. Is it time for there to be protections for these young people who often want the limelight and they want to get there? There's a lot of stars who used to be assistants. [00:11:16] What can be done here? >> Speaker 2: I think that's an excellent question because theoretically, right, we have laws in place that are supposed to protect individuals in this industry from sexual harassment, but they don't necessarily work. And we see a similar power dynamic in workplaces outside of Hollywood, [00:11:36] outside of the film industry, or even cable news industries, where there are individuals with disproportionate amount of power. And those individuals abuse that power, sexually harass, sexually abuse employees that are under them, and leave those employees feeling that they have [00:11:56] little legal recourse or little workplace recourse against those claims. But I think it's even amplified in Hollywood because, as you mentioned, there is a dynamic where a lot of it's a very public facing industry. A lot of these people want to create a name for themselves in this industry. [00:12:12] You have to work your way up in that manner. And so if you are the victim of these crimes, there's further incentive for you to stay quiet than there already is, because just to go back to the point you were making, so many people say, well, why did they wait all this time? [00:12:29] They're just coming to collect a check. When in reality, women who have proven in a court of law that they were the victims of sexual harassment, workplace sexual harassment, workplace sexual assault, are still demonized. No matter how much evidence there is, no matter how much proof there is that they [00:12:44] were the victims, they are still demonized. And this woman, very bravely know, named herself, put some focus on herself now, and she's going to be the victim of retaliation because Vin Diesel is a very popular actor with a lot of fans. [00:12:59] But I think that you make an excellent point that there needs to be increased focus. And with the too movement, there was a lot of people who thought, this is the moment, right? This is the time where we're gonna finally conquer this issue, and they haven't done it. This is an example of something that happened years before the too movement. [00:13:17] But people are still being the victims of sexual assault in Hollywood. We know that for a fact, we know that that's still happening. So it is time for the unions to step up and to start regulating themselves in a more meaningful way, to try to contend more with the issues within their industry, to try to highlight [00:13:34] the accomplishments of women, promote them for their accomplishments. And there's a lot to be done, it's an arduous task. I wish I did, I wish I had a solution just to offer. But it's a work in progress. [00:13:50] And as long as it's important that we continue to cover these stories, to highlight these stories, and then the disproportionate blame that these victims face just for coming forward and telling their stories. >> Speaker 1: Yeah, in many ways, it feels like this is the dirty American way, [00:14:06] the way women are treated, discarded. She was already retaliated against. If her story is true, I hate even phrasing it that way. This is her truth, she attested to it in a legal document and has to be played out, investigated. [00:14:23] But we're hearing a lot of it, and I don't know if this is one more case of a woman abused. What we heard, if true, is abuse. How about that, it is. So we'll keep following the story and we'll see where we end up on this one. [00:14:41] And if there'll be consequences for either party, the movie star or the former assistant.