Diplo may face charges over sexual misconduct allegations
Diplo could face criminal charges over sexual misconduct allegations by a 25-year-old woman, it has been reported.
According to Buzzfeed News, the 42-year-old EDM artist – real name Thomas Wesley Pentz – may face charges of invasion of privacy and intentionally giving someone a sexually transmitted infection.
The Los Angeles city attorney’s office told the outlet that it was considering charging Diplo over a report filed to the LAPD by an unidentified 25-year-old woman in October 2020.
Pentz is accused of recording sexually explicit videos of the woman without consent, distributing at least one without her permission and knowingly infecting her with chlamydia. These allegations are also detailed in a request she filed for a temporary restraining order and in a civil lawsuit earlier this year.
“We are reviewing the referral and have no further comment at this time,” Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for the LA city attorney, told Buzzfeed News.
Back in 2020, the female accuser claimed that Pentz had distributed revenge porn. She was subsequently granted a protective order, which banned Diplo from posting any images of the woman online after an explicit photo of her emerged on Twitter. He was also ordered to delete any photos he had shared previously.
Pentz later sought his own restraining order against the woman, with his lawyer maintaining his innocence and insisting that it was the alleged victim who had been “harassing” the artist in the first place.
Diplo’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, told TMZ at the time: “Unfortunately, in spite of repeated requests to stop, this individual has continued to stalk and harass my client and his family for more than a year.
“As a result, we have asked the Court to grant a restraining order against her and to continue this case so that this troubling situation can be resolved once and for all.”
Over the summer, Diplo was accused of sexual assault through two lawsuits. This led to the cancellation of Pentz’s scheduled postgame performance for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.
One of the suits was then dropped in July, with Freedman claiming “there was absolutely irrefutable evidence that proved that the allegations it contained were false”.
“As soon as we shared that plethora of evidence with the plaintiff’s lawyers, they recognised that they needed to withdraw their suit immediately,” he added.
Diplo has denied all previous allegations.
