Actor Vin Diesel, known for his role in franchises like Fast & Furious and Riddick, has been sued for sexual battery. The lawsuit was filed by the actor’s former assistant who alleges that the event occurred in 2010.
As shared by Variety, she alleges “that in 2010 he pinned her against a wall in a hotel suite and masturbated in front of her.” This would have occurred while the actor was working on Fast Five. According to Asta Jonasson, this took place at his suite at the St. Regis Hotel in Atlanta where she was forced onto his bed.
“According to the suit,” Variety adds, “she asked him to stop and moved toward the door, but he came over to her and began to grope her breasts and kiss her chest. He tried to pull down her underwear, and she screamed and ran toward the bathroom, the suit alleges.”
As mentioned, this is when Diesel pinned her against the wall:
“Jonasson alleges that Diesel pressed against the wall and forced her to touch his erect penis, and then began to masturbate.”
The suit alleges the following:
“Ms. Jonasson was unable to escape and closed her eyes, scared of angering Vin Diesel by rejecting him further and trying to dissociate, wishing the assault would end.”
After the alleged encounter, however, Jonasson was said to have been fired by Samantha Vincent just several hours later. She is both Diesel’s sister and the president of his company.
“It was clear to her that she was being fired because she was no longer useful — Vin Diesel had used her to fulfill his sexual desires and she had resisted his sexual assaults,” the suit alleges. “Ms. Jonasson felt like she was a piece of trash to be discarded. Ms. Jonasson felt helpless, her self esteem was demolished, and she questioned her own skills and whether a successful career would require her to trade her body for advancement.”
Jonasson was able to file the sexual battery lawsuit against Vin Diesel by using California’s Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountability Act. This was a 2022 law which “created a one-year window to file certain 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.”
She also “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 at the St. Regis, took off his shirt, got into bed and said ‘Come here.'”
She then “immediately exited the room and the hotel,” having been “appalled.” Other claims in the suit, in addition to the allegation of sexual battery, include “gender discrimination, wrongful termination, retaliation and negligent supervision.”
At the time of writing, Vin Diesel has not responded to the allegation.