STORY: A U.S. judge has dismissed a sexual assault lawsuit against Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler.
The lawsuit alleged that Tyler had sexually assaulted former teenage model Jeanne Bellino twice in one day nearly 50 years ago.
A Manhattan District judge on Wednesday said Bellino had waited too long to sue the 75-year-old Tyler, who has denied the allegations.
Bellino said she met Aerosmith in Manhattan in 1975 when she was 17.
She alleged that she was walking down the street with Tyler, then 27, when he pushed her into a phone booth, groped her and put his tongue down her throat and later assaulted her again at the Warwick Hotel.
The judge said Bellino did not qualify for a window to pursue claims that would otherwise extend beyond statutes of limitations, because she did not allege that Tyler’s conduct posed a “serious risk of physical injury.”
A lawyer for Tyler said they were “grateful” for the result, while a lawyer for Bellino did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tyler has also defended against a lawsuit in Los Angeles, where another woman, Julia Misley, claimed he sexually assaulted her in 1973 when she was 16 and he was 25.
The same law firm that represented Bellino has also represented Misley in that case.
