‘HUMILIATING AND PAINFUL’

Late Record Industry Titan Ahmet Ertegun Sexually Assaulted Talent Scout: Lawsuit

Atlantic Records co-founder and CEO Ahmet Erdegun “violently” attacked former employee Jan A. Roeg, she claimed on Monday.

A former Atlantic Records “talent finder” is accusing late industry titan Ahmet Ertegun of sexual assault, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court. Jan A. Roeg, who began working for Atlantic in the early 1980s, says Ertegun, who died in 2006, first assaulted her in 1983 by “putting his hand up her skirt without her consent,” and that he subsequently “violently sexually assaulted [her] at his Upper East Side home during an evening that had begun with dinner with several industry insiders, which ostensibly was supposed to be about establishing a business relationship.” Ertegun’s “abusive sexual conduct continued for years and even decades,” according to the suit. “Ms. Roeg also found Mr. Ertegun openly masturbating in his office at least twice when he knew she was entering for a meeting with him.” Ertegun may no longer be alive—but the suit states: “the harm done to Ms. Roeg by his humiliating and painful assaults on Ms. Roeg still has not healed many years later.” She is asking for damages with an exact amount to be determined at trial.