The Los Angeles Police Department has launched an investigation into rapper T.I. and his wife, singer Tameka “Tiny” Harris.
LAPD public information officer Mike Lopez confirmed to USA TODAY Monday that an investigation has been opened but said further details were not available. The investigation comes after two women filed police reports alleging they were drugged and sexually assaulted by the couple. One of the reports was filed with LAPD and the other with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Attorney Tyrone Blackburn, who is representing the couple’s accusers, declined to comment when contacted by USA TODAY.
Steve Sadow, counsel for the couple, said the Harrises “have not spoken to or been contacted” by any members of law enforcement.
“It appears the LAPD ‘accuser’ has chosen once again to remain anonymous, thereby preventing us from being in a position to disprove or refute her allegations – or even examine them,” he continued. “Meanwhile, although we now appear for the first time to have the name of an ‘accuser’ who supposedly filed a police report with LVPD, we have absolutely zero details about her or her claim.”
In the Las Vegas police report, filed May 8, a woman named Rachelle Jenks alleges the couple gave her a white powdered drug and a spiked shot of Patrón before engaging in sexual acts with her in August of 2010. Jenks says in the report she could not consent, because she was drugged and under the influence.
In the LAPD report, an anonymous accuser alleges the couple drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2005. Speaking with an investigator over Zoom on April 8, the accuser said Tiny sat on her back as T.I. sexually assaulted her and that she later vomited, blacked out and awoke with “burning, soreness and itching to her vagina.” The accuser said she believes she was drugged with the Patrón she received from Tiny at a club earlier that night.
“Victim believes there was something in Tiny’s drink that made her blackout because she could not have blacked out from the two drinks she had that evening,” the report states.
In April, the rapper and his wife denounced the allegations against them, after three more anonymous accusers came forward with abuse claims, including drugging, sex trafficking and rape.
Sadow called the allegations “scurrilous” in a statement to USA TODAY at the time, asking for the accusers “to reveal themselves publicly.”
“By hiding behind anonymous allegations, the unnamed accusers effectively render themselves not credible and unworthy of belief,” he continued. “We say: Stop trying to manipulate the press and misuse the justice system, and let the light shine on their identities so we can go about disproving these scurrilous accusations.”
Three more accusers claim abuse by rapper T.I. and wife Tiny; lawyer calls claims ‘not credible’
One of the most jarring anonymous claims came from a woman who detailed an encounter with the couple in Miami when she was 20. She said T.I. forced her to swallow a pill and take a powdered substance, which drugged her. She alleged Tiny then proceeded to engage in sexual intercourse and she could not consent.
Another woman, also 20 at the time, claimed she was drugged and raped by T.I. and one of his male friends, again in Miami, in May of 2010. Blackburn said he has received medical records for the victim.
The third accuser to come forward in April said she was sex trafficked in Nevada, California and Florida by the couple.
In March, Blackburn said he was representing 11 people who allege “forced drugging, kidnapping, rape, and intimidation in at least two states, including California and Georgia” against the Harrises, as well as members of their inner circle. Blackburn said he has also been in contact with witnesses of the alleged abuse.
“These criminal allegations span over 15 years of methodical, sadistic abuse against women in various venues throughout the country,” read a statement from Blackburn to USA TODAY on March 1. “These individual claims paint eerily consistent allegations of women prior to or upon immediately entering (the Harrises’) home, hotel, or tour bus (who) were coerced by Tiny to ingest drugs or unknowingly administered drugs to impair the victims’ ability to consent to subsequent vile sexual acts.”
T.I. and Tiny denied those allegations at the time through Sadow.
“Clifford (T.I.) and Tameka Harris deny in the strongest possible terms these unsubstantiated and baseless allegations,” he said. “We are confident that if these claims are thoroughly and fairly investigated, no charges will be forthcoming. These allegations are nothing more than the continuation of a sordid shakedown campaign that began on social media. The Harrises implore everyone not to be taken in by these obvious attempts to manipulate the press and misuse the justice system.”
Separately, Blackburn is representing a woman who says she has a 10-year history with the couple and is alleging T.I. held a gun to her head after an altercation with his assistant. Sabrina Peterson is suing the couple for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress among other things. She previously took her allegations to social media, leading other women to come forward to Blackburn. T.I. denied her allegations on his social accounts.
In January, T.I. addressed the accusations against him and his wife on social media.
“Whatever we ever have done, has been done with consensual adults. … We ain’t never forced nobody, we ain’t never drugged nobody against their will, we ain’t never held nobody against their will, we ain’t never made nobody do anything,” T.I. said in an eight-minute long video statement shared on Instagram. “I ain’t never raped nobody, never raped nobody.”
Rapper T.I., wife Tiny issue denial after multiple accusers come forward with abuse, rape claims
Contributing: Amy Haneline, Rasha Ali, Hannah Yasharoff
