Bryan Singer Faces New Lawsuit

The plaintiff's attorney, Jeff Herman, previously filed two sexual assault lawsuits against Singer in 2014.

Bryan Singer, who was fired from directing 20th Century Fox’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” on December 4, has been named as the defendant in a rape lawsuit filed today in Washington state. The plaintiff, Cesar Sanchez-Guzman, claims that Singer sexually assaulted him on a yacht in approximately 2003, when he was 17 years old.

Read More:Fox Fired Bryan Singer, but It Won’t Be Able to Remove Him as the Director of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
Allegedly, after meeting Singer at a yacht party, Sanchez-Guzman was invited to tour the vessel, owned by Lester Waters, who is identified in the filing as “a wealthy tech investor who frequently hosted parties for young gay males in the Seattle area.” (According to LinkedIn, Waters was the chief technology officer for Meridian Group in Seattle at the time.) The yacht was bound for Lake Union and Lake Washington, and alcohol was served onboard.

Mid-tour, Sanchez-Guzman said Singer guided them into the closed-off master bedroom. Per the complaint, “Bryan Singer then forced Cesar to the floor, shoved Cesar’s face against his crotch area and demanded Cesar perform oral sex on him. Bryan Singer pulled out his penis, smacked Cesar in the face with it and forced it into Cesar’s mouth. Cesar pleaded with him to stop, however he continued to force Cesar to perform oral sex, causing Cesar to choke.”

Singe then laid Sanchez-Guzman on the bed, performed oral sex on him, and then anally penetrated him despite the boys cries for him to stop.

The plaintiff lives in King County, Washington, where the case was filed. Sanchez-Guzman is represented by Jeff Herman, who previously represented two men who filed similar lawsuits against Singer in 2014. Michael Egan III and “John Doe No. 117” said that when they were underage, Singer raped them in Kailua, Hawaii, and London, England, respectively. Those plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their cases shortly after filing, and Egan III was later imprisoned for an unrelated matter.

The director deemed Egan’s allegations as “outrageous, vicious and completely false,” adding that he was not in Hawaii on the dates in question. Singer’s lawyer, Marty Singer, dismissed that suit as a publicity stunt. “This matter is nothing more than the attorney seeking to get his 15 minutes of fame by sending out a press release with his ‘media consultant’ yesterday following up with a press conference today,” Singer told Variety in 2014. “Attorneys who try cases don’t hold press conferences.”

Herman specializes in representing victims in sex abuse cases, which include the suit against former Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash, New York financier Jeffrey Epstein, and multiple cases against the Catholic Church and the Archdiocese of Miami, including a $100 million verdict against a Miami priest.