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Update:
- A California judge said a settlement worth $2.2 million made to resolve claims that students at James Franco’s film school were sexually exploited must be revised and resubmitted.
- Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David S. Cunningham ruled there is a need for a new settlement due to a lack of contact information for the class.
- The judge determined the defendants, including James Franco and his studio partners, do not have any of the class members’ physical addresses.
- Cunningham preliminarily approved the settlement agreement last year.
- The settlement resolved claims that Franco and two of his studio partners promised female students at his now-closed film school that they could further their careers by performing sex acts and acting in sex scenes.
(July 02, 2021)
Actor James Franco has agreed to pay more than $2.2 million to settle claims that he sexually exploited two former students of his acting school and defrauded others.
A motion for preliminary approval of the deal was filed June 24 in California state court, Law360 reported.
Through the settlement, Franco and partners in his studio Rabbit Bandini Productions and its school Rabbit Bandini Studio 4 end claims from Plaintiffs Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, who say they were sexually exploited at the school in exchange for career advancement.
They alleged Franco and his partners promised to give womens’ careers a boost through their connections, but only if they agreed to “overt sexual acts, nudity and performing in sex scenes — often in an orgy type setting.”
The school has since been shuttered.
The total settlement is $2.235 million, $894,000 of which will go to settle the sexual exploitation claims, the New York Times reported.
The remaining $1.341 million would be spread among the 1,500 students who paid for classes at the acting school, as part of the class action lawsuit alleging fraud.
In their 2019 lawsuit, Tither-Kaplan and Gaal had said that Franco dangled acting opportunities in front of female students in exchange for explicit nudity and sex. They alleged Franco and his partners had committed sex discrimination, sexual harassment, misleading advertising, fraud, false promise, and breach of contract.
“While James Franco touted that one difference between Studio 4 and other acting schools was its ability to funnel promising talent into his projects, the reality was that he was looking to create a pipeline of young women who were subjected to his personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education,” they said.
As part of the settlement, Franco admits no wrongdoing.
“While defendants continue to deny the allegations in the complaint, they acknowledge that plaintiffs have raised important issues; and all parties strongly believe that now is a critical time to focus on addressing the mistreatment of women in Hollywood,” the parties said in a joint statement on the settlement.
“All agree on the need to make sure that no one in the entertainment industry — regardless of sex, race, religion, disability, ethnicity, background, gender or sexual orientation — faces discrimination, harassment or prejudice of any kind.”
Tither-Kaplan and Gaal have agreed to drop their individual claims as part of the settlement.
Meanwhile, anyone who paid tuition for courses at Rabbit Bandini Studio 4 will automatically be entitled to a share of the fraud class settlement fund, Law360 reported. Leftover funds will go to the National Women’s Law Center.
In California, sexual assault laws are meant to protect residents from forcible, fraudulent, or otherwise non-consensual sex acts. These laws lay out both the definitions of sexual crimes and their punishments.
These laws also give Californians the right to sue their abusers in civil court. As experts begin to better understand these crimes, and our understanding of human psychology improves, sexual assault laws have begun to change.
One such change came in the form of Assembly Bill 218, passed in California in 2019, which represents a big win for sexual assault victims and victim advocates.To learn more about your rights under California law, click here.
What do you think of this settlement? Let us know in the comments!
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