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As arguments in a child sex abuse lawsuit filed by the former Julia Holcomb continue, Steven Tyler‘s lawyers might claim a partial triumph in a recent court decision, as per Loudwire. Los Angeles County Judge Patricia A. Young has dismissed claims of alleged abuse in Oregon, Washington and Massachusetts, citing regulations limiting the age of consent and the statute of limitations. Importantly, though, the allegations against Aerosmith‘s frontman in California can proceed. It appears that Judge Young would prevent the other claims from being refiled by dismissing them. She said she would make a written decision shortly. From the bench, Young declared, “I have clearly signaled how I intend” to rule. “I’m not moving the trial.“
Holcomb, who is now married and goes by Julia Misley, claims that while she was a sophomore in high school in the early 1970s, the then-25-year-old Tyler started assaulting her while on tour. According to Misley’s lawsuit, they initially met backstage in Portland. The following night, she claimed, they had intercourse in Seattle. The age of consent in both situations was eighteen at the time.
I was treated like a sex toy, I was treated like a pet, like a thing, and it was humiliating. – Julia Misley
Tyler described a later encounter in California in his 2011 autobiography, “Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?”, but he did not include Misley’s name. After a three-year relationship during which Misley claims she was groomed, Tyler eventually became her legal guardian.
I went and slept at her parents’ house for a couple of nights and her parents fell in love with me, signed papers over for me to have custody, so I wouldn’t get arrested if I took her out of state. – Steven Tyler
In contrast, Misley claimed that as an impressionable adolescent, she had been “lost in a rock and roll culture“. Tyler’s attorneys refuted the allegations of abuse and requested that her December 2022 case be dropped on the basis that she moved home with him in Boston, where 16 was the legal age of consent. However, the judge decided that when they traveled together outside of Massachusetts, local laws applied. After California approved the Child Victim’s Act in 2019, which allowed survivors to file older claims within three years, Misley filed this lawsuit. Young said that her claim that Tyler had sexually assaulted her while on tour at a hotel in Beverly Hills was sufficient to move forward.
Even if it’s legal in Massachusetts, California has an interest in saying, ‘Okay, that’s fine but it’s illegal here. Don’t come within our borders and do it here. California absolutely has an interest in people coming into our state, committing a crime here, such as childhood sexual abuse, and then leaving again. – Judge Patricia A. Young
A second lady later brought suit against Tyler again alleging sexual assault as a minor, but those claims have since been dropped.
