Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

LaToya Jackson claims she was violated by husband

LaToya Jackson is using a new federal law to accuse her estranged husband Jack Gordon of repeatedly beating her into performing topless.

The singer said in a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Las Vegas that her soon-to-be ex-husband violated her civil rights under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act.

Jackson accused Gordon of slapping, punching and hitting her until she agreed to perform at topless shows in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Europe. On two separate occasions, Jackson said she was hit with a soda bottle and chair.

"This is precisely what Congress wanted to stop, this beating up a woman until she posed for Playboy," Jackson's attorney, R. Brian Oxman, said Monday.

The 1994 act, which addresses criminal and civil violations, allows victims of assault, battery and rape to seek vengeance, even if the perpetrator has not been charged with a crime.

Jackson is seeking an estimated $20 million, the amount she said she made from the performances and magazine photo shoots.

"When you pimp or pander and beat a woman into submission to do these things, I think it's only appropriate that you give back what you made off her," Oxman said.

But Gordon steadfastly maintains that Jackson's allegations are "absolutely not true," and the money was made by him while he managed his wife's career.

"In self defense I hit her," Gordon said from New York. "She attacked me (in 1993) with a butcher knife and I hit her and then called the police. I held up a chair up in front of her to protect myself."

Jackson, 40, filed for divorce in May, renewing charges that Gordon, 57, beat her during their stormy seven-year marriage.

This month, a Clark County Family Court judge issued a joint restraining order, prohibiting contact between the two. The couple is set to return to court Friday, at which time Gordon plans to ask that Jackson undergo psychiatric and medical examinations.

He said the scar Jackson claims she received from a Coca-Cola bottle during a May fight was self-inflicted.

In the lawsuit, which spells out a number of alleged abuses, the performer said she was beaten and slammed into a wall during the summer and fall of 1994 after refusing to perform at topless bars in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Gordon said before each performance Jackson would refuse to go on stage, but after some cajoling she would step into the spotlight.

"I didn't hit her, though," he said.

The federal lawsuit and divorce proceedings were filed here because Jackson and Gordon consider themselves Las Vegas residents and own a residence here.

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