Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman during a helicopter ride to Los Angeles in 2003, according to a new lawsuit.
In a complaint filed Friday in L.A. and obtained by The Times, a woman identified only as Jane Doe accused Lee of assault after she was “lured” by Lee’s pilot. The lawsuit accuses the rock star of “forcibly groping, kissing and penetrating her with his fingers, and attempting to force her to perform oral copulation” during the 2003 trip, according to the complaint.
The woman said she met the pilot, David Martz, around early 2002 at a San Diego bank, where she worked as a teller. Martz invited her to ride in his helicopter, according to the complaint, and she eventually met him for what she believed would be a trip around San Diego County. Instead, the lawsuit claims, the pilot took her on a ride with Lee to L.A.
“Within a matter of minutes of being airborne, Martz pulled out alcohol he had stored in the helicopter and began to mix drinks,” the complaint says. Martz and Lee allegedly drank, snorted cocaine and smoked marijuana during the flight, Jane Doe claims in the suit.
After a few minutes, the lawsuit says, Martz asked the woman through the helicopter’s headphone system why she was not drinking. He allegedly told her that she should “just relax.”
He then asked her to come up to the cockpit and sit with Lee, according to the complaint. The woman said she “felt immense pressure from both Martz and Lee to come to the cockpit, so she acquiesced.”
“Within a matter of minutes of joining Martz and Lee, Lee began groping and kissing Plaintiff. Plaintiff attempted to pull away from Lee, but he only became more forceful. At one point, Lee penetrated Plaintiff with his fingers while fondling her breasts. Lee then pulled down his pants and attempted to force Plaintiff’s head toward his genitals,” the complaint said.
The woman was in tears and “trapped with little mobility to leave the cockpit,” according to the filing. The woman alleges that Lee forced himself on her and sexually assaulted her while the pilot “merely watched.”
Mayhem Touring, Tommy Lee Inc., A Natural High Helicopters and Social Helicopters are named as defendants in the suit, which seeks damages for “sexual assault, gender violence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence.”
Lee’s representatives did not immediately responded to requests for comment. The firm representing Jane Doe declined to comment on active litigation.
Martz died in 2015. He had lost his pilot’s license three times over the years — the latest revocation occurred in 2009 after he had oral sex with an adult film actress while flying a helicopter. At the time of his death, he was facing a fourth revocation proceeding on allegations that he falsified his FAA medical certificate related to two drunk driving convictions in 2013 and 2014. He surrendered the document during the agency’s investigation.
The lawsuit is the latest against Lee, who was famously sentenced to six months in Los Angeles County jail in 1998 for beating his then-wife, actor Pamela Anderson, while she was holding their 2-year-old son. Lee had pleaded no contest to a felony charge of spousal battery in that case.
