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Neil Portnow, the former CEO of the Recording Academy, was sued in New York on Wednesday by a woman who says he drugged and raped her in 2018.
The accuser goes unnamed in the lawsuit, obtained by The Daily Beast, but is described as an “internationally acclaimed musician, inventor, and former member of The Recording Academy.” In addition to accusing Portnow of sexual assault, she also accuses the Recording Academy of “aid[ing] and abet[ing] Portnow’s conduct to protect their reputations and silence Plaintiff’s and other women in the music industry who have stood up and spoken up.”
In the suit, the anonymous accuser says she met Portnow in January 2018 at a Recording Academy event. That June, she says she asked the then-CEO if she could interview him for a magazine article, and he invited her to meet him at his Manhattan hotel to conduct the interview. There, Portnow allegedly offered her wine, but did not drink any himself.