\n<\/p>\n
In 2000, Mr. Reid, a founder of the influential Atlanta label LaFace, replaced Mr. Davis as president of Arista. Ms. Dixon said that their relationship, which had been professional and cordial when they knew each other as industry colleagues, changed quickly. \u201cAlmost immediately,\u201d the suit says, he began \u201csexualizing and harassing\u201d Ms. Dixon, then 29.<\/p>\n
In January 2001, the suit says, Arista held a companywide retreat in Puerto Rico. Ms. Dixon was invited to fly alongside Mr. Reid and other executives on a private plane, then arrived and discovered that no other passengers were onboard. Mr. Reid, the complaint says, \u201casked her to sit next to him to go over materials for the presentation, and then he began playing with her hair, kissing her and digitally penetrated her vulva without her consent.\u201d She spent the rest of the flight \u201cin a daze,\u201d the complaint says. Though the company had booked her a hotel room, she shared her assistant\u2019s, and traveled home on a commercial flight.<\/p>\n
Ms. Dixon then took pains to avoid being alone with Mr. Reid, who invited her to meetings in his room at the Four Seasons in Manhattan \u201cnight after night,\u201d the suit says. She spoke with a life coach, to whom she disclosed the assault, about how to evade him while also maintaining her job; she was eager to keep her position not only for professional reasons but because a recent cancer diagnosis made her fear losing her health insurance, the suit says.<\/p>\n
When Ms. Dixon succeeded at circumventing Mr. Reid\u2019s advances, the suit says, he \u201cretaliated against her by embarrassing her in front of others or otherwise being curt and unprofessional\u201d and punished the artists Ms. Dixon had already signed, or wanted to sign: \u201cPromotional and recording budgets were suddenly reduced dramatically or frozen altogether. Song demos and artist auditions were flatly rejected.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very clear that I was being punished because I would not comply,\u201d she said in the interview.<\/p>\n
After a work event later in 2001, when Ms. Dixon acquiesced and accepted an offer for a ride home from Mr. Reid in his chauffeured car \u2014 \u201ca mistake,\u201d she said in the interview \u2014 he assaulted her again, the suit says. The pattern of resistance and retaliation continued, the suit says, as Ms. Dixon \u201crealized Mr. Reid would continue to stifle her career.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n