Former boxer George Foreman is the target of two women’s claims.
Two women have filed lawsuits in a Los Angeles court alleging that former heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman sexually assaulted them in the 1970s.
Since the claims were first made public last month, Foreman, 73, has rejected them, and his representatives have pointed inquiries regarding the cases to one of his prior statements.
On Wednesday, the ladies filed separate cases in Los Angeles County Superior Court under the aliases Gwen H. and Denise F.
The claims refer to Foreman as DOE 1, but they also identify him as the professional boxer who fought Joe Frazier in 1973 to win the heavyweight world championship before losing it to Muhammad Ali in 1974.
Both ladies, who are now in their early 60s, said that the reason they first encountered Foreman as kids was because their fathers were Foreman’s boxing partners.
In her case, Denise, a resident of Los Angeles, claimed that Foreman groomed her when she was 8 years old and engaged in sexual activity with her when she was 15 (under the legal age of consent), once in a hotel room in San Francisco.
Gwen, a native of Nevada, said that she first encountered Foreman when she was 9 years old and that he sexually assaulted and raped her between the ages of 15 and 16, including in a Beverly Hills residence. She said that Foreman warned her that failure to cooperate would result in her father’s termination as a boxing consultant.
Foreman deemed the accusations to be untrue and without merit.
Two ladies have allegedly been attempting to extort millions of dollars from him and his family for the past six months, according to his statement. “I don’t start conflicts, but I also don’t avoid them either,” she said.
The cases were brought about by a 2020 California legislation that extends the statute of limitations, which up until that point has precluded certain victims of child sex abuse from bringing civil claims.
Both ladies are asking for a jury trial and an undisclosed sum of damages.
