On the day his civil trial was set to begin, the Grammy-winning music executive Antonio Reid, who is known as L.A., settled a lawsuit by a former employee who had accused him of sexual assault and harassment.
The former employee, Drew Dixon, was a music executive who worked for Mr. Reid at Arista Records in the early 2000s. She filed a lawsuit in 2023 that accused Mr. Reid of groping, kissing and digitally penetrating her without her consent on two occasions, once on his private plane en route to a companywide retreat in Puerto Rico and once in his car after a work event.
The lawsuit said that after Ms. Dixon, 55, rebuffed Mr. Reid, 69, on other occasions, he retaliated by reducing her promotional and recording budgets and rejecting song demos and artist auditions. As a result, the suit said, Ms. Dixon was unable to sign and cultivate new artists, such as John Legend and Kanye West.
Details of the settlement were not disclosed. It was announced on Monday, the day Mr. Reid’s trial was scheduled to begin in Manhattan.
Ms. Dixon filed her lawsuit under a New York law, the Adult Survivors Act, for which she was an outspoken supporter. The law opened a one-year period for people who said they had been sexually assaulted to file civil suits even if the statute of limitations had run out.
“I hope my work as an advocate for the Adult Survivors Act helps to bring us closer to a safer music business for everyone,” she said in a statement about the settlement. “In a world where good news is often hard to find, I hope for survivors that today is a ray of light peeking through the clouds.”
Imran H. Ansari, a lawyer for Mr. Reid, said in a statement that “Mr. Reid has amicably resolved this matter with Ms. Dixon without any admission of liability.”
Ms. Dixon left Arista Records in 2002, which she said caused irreparable damage to her career. While she made some later forays in the industry, the suit said she continued to face pushback when trying to secure record deals.
In 2017, she was one of three women who accused the music mogul Russell Simmons of rape. She later participated in a documentary, “On the Record,” that followed Ms. Dixon before, during and after her decision to go public with the allegations.
Before Ms. Dixon’s lawsuit, Mr. Reid stepped down from his position as chairman of Epic Records after an assistant accused him of sexual harassment. In recent years, Mr. Reid founded the label mega with Usher and was the executive producer on Mariah Carey’s 2025 album, “Here for It All.”
Michaela Towfighi is a Times arts and culture reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early career journalists.
The post L.A. Reid Settles Lawsuit Shortly Before Sexual Assault Trial appeared first on New York Times.
