A Los Angeles judge has dismissed the remaining claims in a sexual battery and retaliation lawsuit filed against actor Vin Diesel, but the plaintiff’s attorney has confirmed they will appeal the decision.
The ruling was not based on the merits of the allegations but on a jurisdictional issue. The judge determined that the California law under which the suit was filed does not apply to an incident that occurred in Georgia.
“The Court did not decide anything about the truth of Ms. Asta Jonasson’s allegations,” her attorney, Matthew Hale, said following the ruling. “The ruling was based on a legal technicality, with which we respectfully disagree. Ms. Jonasson intends to appeal.”
In his 13-page summary judgment, Superior Court Judge Daniel M. Crowley noted that the plaintiff’s case relied on a California statute for an alleged assault that took place in Atlanta. “It is undisputed that the alleged sexual assault took place in Atlanta, Georgia,” the judge wrote, adding that “California statutes are presumed not to have extraterritorial effect unless the Legislature expressly states otherwise.”
The lawsuit was filed in December 2023 by Asta Jonasson, a former assistant to the Fast & Furious star. She alleged that in 2010, during the filming of Fast Five, Diesel assaulted her in his suite at the St. Regis Hotel in Atlanta. The suit claimed that just hours after she resisted his advances, she was fired by his sister, Samantha Vincent, as retaliation.
Jonasson brought her case under California’s Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountability Act, a law designed to lift the statute of limitations for certain claims. However, the judge concluded the act had no bearing on an event that occurred in Georgia nearly 15 years ago.
During earlier court arguments, Jonasson’s legal team asserted that the case belonged in California because both parties are state residents and she was hired by Diesel’s California-based company, One Race Productions. Diesel’s lawyers successfully argued that the allegations concerned an out-of-state matter and must therefore be addressed under Georgia law.
Bryan Freedman, Diesel’s attorney, has previously stated that his client “categorically denies this claim in its entirety.” Following the dismissal, Freedman said, “We are grateful that the court put an end to this meritless lawsuit. We are pleased that this matter has been resolved entirely.”
The ruling dismisses the six remaining claims against the actor. In June, the same judge threw out four of Jonasson’s initial claims, citing expired statutes of limitations under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act.
