The Jane Doe suing Tiffany Haddish and Aries Spears for sexual abuse of a minor, among other accusations, is now calling on the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to “immediately arrest and prosecute” the comedians.
On Monday, Jane Doe filed a pro se lawsuit on behalf of both herself and her 15-year-old brother—whom the complaint names with the alias “John.” According to the lawsuit, Jane and John knew Haddish as an “auntie” thanks to her long-standing friendship with their mother. They were 14 and 7 years old, respectively, when the complaint alleges that Haddish and Spears recruited them for comedy videos in which each child was asked to perform sexually suggestive acts on camera.
In a letter to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón obtained by The Daily Beast, Jane points out—as The Daily Beast initially reported—that her mother filed a report with Las Vegas police in January of 2020, in which she named both Haddish and Spears. (The Daily Beast has seen a copy of the report.) The letter alleges that since Las Vegas authorities transferred the case to the LAPD, the officer assigned to the case “has done nothing with this complaint.”
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“This matter’s breadth and complexity require your jurisdictional powers and resources to tackle and end the stream depravity committed by Haddish and Spears,” Jane’s letter to the District Attorney’s Office concludes. “My brother and I are prepared to speak with investigators and prosecutors from your office and provide you with irrefutable evidence that substantiates our allegations.”
Andrew Brettler, an attorney representing Haddish, has issued a statement on her behalf denying what he calls “bogus claims” and alleging that the siblings’ mother “has been trying to assert these bogus claims against Ms. Haddish for several years.” Debra Opri, an attorney representing Spears, told the Washington Post that her client “isn’t going to fall for any shakedown.” Haddish herself posted a statement to her social media channels on Monday saying that while she was legally bound from discussing the case, “I deeply regret having agreed to act in it.”
In the summer of 2013, when Jane was 14 years old, the lawsuit alleges that Haddish recruited her for a commercial. A year later, Haddish allegedly recruited John for a separate video that the lawsuit claims she described to his mother as a sizzle reel for Nickelodeon. In both cases, Spears and Haddish allegedly asked the children to perform sexually suggestive acts on camera.
When Jane entered the studio to record her commercial in 2013, the complaint claims that Spears asked her to mimic a video in which a group of co-eds ate a subway sandwich in a sexually suggestive manner, even down to the noises. When Jane sat silent, Haddish allegedly joined the pair and instructed the minor regarding “how to give fellatio, including movements, noises, moaning, and groaning,” the complaint states.
Speaking with The Daily Beast, Jane said she tried to shrug off what happened at the time. But the lawsuit alleges that Jane, like her brother John, remains traumatized by Haddish and Spears’ actions. “Plaintiff Jane Doe is 22 years of age now and has never dated,” the lawsuit states. “She is scared that she will be taken advantage of again and led down a path of false trust like the path that Haddish led her down.”
John’s video was allegedly shot a year later in Aries Spears’ home; while Jane allegedly attended the shoot as a chaperone, the lawsuit claims Haddish separated the two upon arrival. Spears allegedly told John’s mother that his footage had been deleted, but in 2018 the lawsuit alleges that the family became aware that a sketch had been made and, in fact, was still online. In the video, titled “The Mind of a Pedophile” and published on the site Funny or Die and elsewhere, Haddish plays the 7-year-old’s mother and leaves him with a pedophilic babysitter played by Spears. The children’s mother was horrified; Funny or Die called it “absolutely disgusting” and said it was uploaded as user-generated content, and that they removed it as soon as they learned of its existence.
The Daily Beast has viewed a recording of the video, in which John spends most of his time clad only in underwear while Spears leers at him and, at one point, applies baby oil to the child’s body. By the end of the video, John is seen rubbing baby oil on his shirtless babysitter’s shoulder. The lawsuit claims that John still places bandages over the cameras of his electronics out of fear of being recorded and quotes a testimony he wrote in therapy that states his experience during the shoot “fucked me up bad.” Jane’s letter alleges that the original video, with sound, includes R Kelly’s song “Bump n’ Grind” playing in the background.
Jane’s lawsuit accuses both comedians of intentional infliction of emotional distress, gross negligence, sexual battery, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse of a minor, and Haddish is further accused of negligent supervision/failure to warn, breach of fiduciary duty, and constructive fraud. She is seeking general and special damages, as well as “any appropriate statutory damages.”
In the statement from John’s therapy cited in the lawsuit, the now 15-year-old writes, “I don’t got no friends, I don’t trust nobody, I’m scared of adults, I refuse to be recorded or take pictures because I am scared of weird-ass adults trying to do nasty stuff to me again. I spend all of my time in my room and do not go anywhere because I don’t trust anybody.”
