French Montana Accused of Sexually Assaulting Intoxicated Woman

UPDATE: This case was settled in 2022. 

An anonymous woman sued Moroccan-American rapper French Montana on Thursday, alleging that she was given alcohol and raped during a party at the artist’s home in Hidden Hills, Calif. two years ago.

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The woman — identified only as Jane Doe — states that she blacked out and was sexually assaulted while she was incapacitated. According to the suit, the woman believes that Montana was one of the men who came into the bedroom and assaulted her.

She also accuses Mansour Bennouna — Montana’s purported business partner and “right-hand man” — of sexually assaulting her.

Doe sued Montana, 35, under his legal name, Karim Kharbouch, and his company, Coke Boys Records, alleging that the company promotes an image of drinking, drug-taking and sexual misconduct.

“Alcohol fueled rape was a foreseeable risk of the way that Employer Defendants conducted business yet they took no steps to mitigate the risk of alcohol abuse or sexual assault,” the complaint alleges.

According to the suit, Doe was invited to a recording studio on March 28, 2018, where Bennouna and Montana were working while drinking and taking drugs. Montana allegedly took an interest in the woman and invited her to his house in Hidden Hills.

She and some other women arrived at the home around 6 a.m., according to the suit, and were furnished with alcohol. About a half hour later, she decided she wanted to leave, but the two men urged her to take a shot. She didn’t want to, but took the shot anyway, and then blacked out, according to the suit.

According to the suit, she remembers being in a bedroom, while several men came in and out. She said she was incapacitated and unable to give consent. She said she regained consciousness around 1:30 p.m., and realized that Bennouna was holding her and rubbing against her.

She had pain in her pelvis, and was hysterical because she believed she had been raped while intoxicated, according to the suit. She left the house and went to the Kaiser Permanente hospital in Panorama City for a rape kit, the suit states, which confirmed the presence of semen. She said she also went to the police.

The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. Doe is represented by Maryann P. Gallagher and Torsten Bassell.

Montana was born in Morocco and moved with his family to the New York City borough of the Bronx when he was a teen. He released his first mixtape in 2007 and has followed with several albums over the years, working with Diddy (with whom he signed a joint-venture record deal), Rick Ross, A$AP Rocky and others. He was shot in the head outside a Bronx recording studio in 2003 and hospitalized for several weeks.

Update: The suit was dismissed pursuant to a settlement on April 13, 2022.

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