Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee Accused of 2003 Sexual Assault in a Helicopter
Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee is accused of sexually assaulting a woman during a drug-fueled helicopter ride in 2003, in a lawsuit filed in a California court.
The civil suit claims the attack took place in Feb. 2003, after the woman was “lured under false pretenses” by Lee’s personal helicopter pilot, David Martz, to take a helicopter ride.
The woman, identified only as Jane Doe, said in a suit Martz was a friend for several years, and she believed the flight would be a sightseeing tour around San Diego, where she lives. But when she arrived at the airfield, she learned the plans had changed, it was actually a trip about 150 miles north to to Van Nuys, California, in the Los Angeles area.
The plaintiff claims she was unaware that Lee — a founding member of the heavy metal band known both for hits like 1989’s “Dr. Feelgood,” and its members decadent behavior over the years — would also be on the flight until she saw him waiting by the helicopter. The pilot introduced her to the rock star and they boarded.
“Within a matter of minutes” after the 40-minute flight began, the suit claims, Lee and Martz “consumed several alcoholic beverages, smoked marijuana and snorted cocaine.”
Lee told the woman, who was not drinking, to “just relax,” the suit claims.
The two men pressured her to move to the cockpit and sit on Lee’s lap, ostensibly to enjoy the view.
“Tommy Lee then proceeded to sexually assault plaintiff by forcibly groping, kissing, penetrating her with his fingers and attempting to force her to perform oral copulation,” the suit claims. She claims she attempted to pull away from Lee “but he only became more forceful.” Martz did nothing but smile, the suit maintains.
The woman was in tears by the time he tried to force her to perform oral sex, the suit claims.
After the flight landed and Lee got out, Martz flew the helicopter back to San Diego, with the two remaining in silence.
The suit notes that at the time, “rock-and-roll stars like Lee thrived upon and even gained further celebrity from salacious and hedonistic conduct,” which led the woman to believe “nothing would come from reporting Lee’s and Martz’s conduct to local police authorities.”
“Like many survivors of sexual assualt, plaintiff believed that the events that unfolded on Martz’s plane in February 2003 were caused by her own actions and that this was an insolated incident that would not be taken seriously by local police authorities,” the suit states. “Plaintiff thus did not file a police report.”
The suit claims she has since learned “she was likely not the only victim of Martz and Lee,” and that they had a “history of engaging in indecent and illegal conduct on Martz’s helicopter.” The court papers accuse them of conspiring to lure other women, both before and after the woman who filed the suit, and engaging in coverups to ensure the behavior was not disclosed.
The woman and Martz were in contact only one more time, in June 2009, when they spoke on the phone. He died in a small plane crash in 2015.
The woman claims she suffered “severe emotional, physical and psychological distress” as a result of the assault, and is demanding a jury trial.
In addition to Lee, she is suing Mayhem Touring, a California company Lee was president and owner of at the time, and Martz’ company, A Natural High Helicopters.
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