Diplo reaches resolution in stalking and revenge porn lawsuit

WARNING: This article includes accounts and imagery of sexual and domestic violence and may be distressing for some readers. Resources for support are listed at the end of this article

The US DJ and producer Diplo has reached a “resolution in principle” in a complex legal dispute with his ex lover, Shelly Auguste.

According to Rolling Stone, the 46-year-old musician's legal team announced yesterday (January 6) that an agreement had been reached, meaning a trial that was due to take place this month can be avoided.

Diplo, real name Thomas Wesley Pentz, had filed a lawsuit in 2021 against Auguste for revenge porn, stalking and trespassing, and filed for a restraining order.

According to Vulture, this was after Auguste had filed for her own restraining order against Pentz in November 2020, accusing the DJ of assault, sexual battery, battery, gender violence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, intentional intrusion into private affairs, defamation and fraud, as well as other violations.

In January 2021, Pentz and Auguste entered into a settlement regarding their requests for restraining orders.

According to Rolling Stone, Pentz's lawyer, Brian Elliot Turnauer, said in the LA court where proceedings were taking place: “We have a resolution in principle. We’re probably days, not weeks, away from getting it signed. There are one or two paragraphs to kind of tweak. We sent [revisions] over the weekend."

Rolling Stone also reported that Auguste previously alleged that she had connected with Pentz in 2014 online when she was just 17 years old.

She had accused him of grooming her into sending intimate messages and of posting a sexually explicit image of her via an anonymous Twitter account as "revenge" after she claimed he’d filmed them in a sexual encounters without her consent. Pentz has previously denied the claims.

The resolution has come after an LA judge ruled that another woman must reveal her name if she chooses to proceed with a separate revenge porn lawsuit that she filed against Pentz in June. In a statement to Billboard, her lawyer said that she intends to appeal the decision.

The woman alleges that she was 21 when she started speaking with the DJ in April 2016 over Snapchat. She claims that the two entered into a relationship that lasted several years, and alleges that between 2018 and 2023 Pentz shared a video of the two of them having sex with other people via Snapchat and text message.

Pentz has denied the allegations.

[Via Rolling Stone]

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