The magician David Copperfield was accused of sexual assault by 16 women, according to an investigation carried out by the newspaper Guardian.
According to the media, the attacks cover a long period: from the late 1980s to 2014. At that time, more than half of the young women were under 18 years old; and some even reached 15 years old.
Three of them accuse Copperfield of having drugged them to have sexual relations, so they could not give their consent, while the illusionist denies all charges. Some of the complainants gave their testimony with their names and surnames, allowing themselves to be photographed, while others preferred to remain anonymous.
To carry out the report, Guardian conducted more than 100 interviews and played court recordings. Among the people who decided to show themselves publicly is former model Brittney Lewis, who claims that Copperfield drugged and assaulted her in 1988, when she was 17 years old. Her version was made public in 2018 and she continues to stand by it. The pattern was very similar among the victims, and they say that, both alone and with friends, they were doped and raped.
The women also maintain a similar past since they met Copperfield when they were very young, and were looking to have a career in the entertainment industry or be models, while he offered to help them.
Among the stories is that of a woman named Carl, who first saw the magician in one of his shows in 1991, when she was 15 years old, and it was not until now that she realized that, then, he groped her. He then started sending her gifts and tickets to her shows. When he was 16, he sent her some balloons for Valentine’s Day, with a note that read: “I will return in two years”. When she turned 18, the young woman decided to have consensual sexual relations with him, which was her first time.
Lawyers representing the magician claim that he actually met the girl when she was just a teenager and that they had a relationship for four years, but they “absolutely deny any suggestion of touching or inappropriate acts.”
Four of the women (three of them then in their teens) accuse Copperfield of sexual touching, even when he brought them on stage. A relative of one of the girls, then 15 years old, remembers seeing from the stalls how she groped his chest in the middle of the show.
One of them tells it with names and surnames: Fallon Thornton, now 38 years old, has told how a decade ago, in 2014, Copperfield took her on stage at the MGM Grand casino and hotel in Las Vegas, where she was doing a show, and told her she squeezed her breasts. She then went to the city police to file a complaint, but she assures that no one took her seriously and that they closed the case due to lack of evidence.
In response, the lawyers deny that this gesture is not seen in the videos from that night. The casino — where the magician has performed regularly since 2000 — has declined to comment.
