Steven Tyler acquitted of sexual assault charges

A judge has dismissed most of a sexual assault lawsuit filed against Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, filed by Julia Misli, alleging he sexually abused her when she was a minor.

Misli alleged that Tyler "groomed" and "manipulated" her when she was a teenager decades ago, and that he himself admitted to this by calling her his "underage wife" in his memoirs.

However, in a ruling issued on Tuesday, Los Angeles Judge Patricia A. Young said that much of the lawsuit, filed many years later, was time-barred under the law of the state of Massachusetts, where they lived during their three-year relationship.

However, Judge Young ruled that Misli could sue over the alleged sexual intercourse during a short trip to California - where time limits do not apply due to a special sexual assault law - but dismissed the charges relating to the rest of their relationship.

"This is a huge victory for Steven Tyler," his attorney David Long Daniels said in a statement to Billboard.

"The court has dismissed with prejudice 99,9 percent of the charges against Mr. Tyler in this case. The court has decided that only one night, more than 50 years ago, from a three-year relationship can remain the subject of the proceedings. We look forward to the trial scheduled for August 31," he added.

Misli (formerly Holcomb) sued Tyler back in 2022, claiming that she was the unnamed teenager from his memoir, and that he abused his fame to gain control over her, which included signing a custody agreement with her parents and sexually abusing her for three years starting in 1973, when she was just 16 years old.

Advokati Tajlera opisali su taj period kao sporazumnu „romantičnu vezu“ između muškarca „u srednjim dvadesetim godinama“ i djevojke „između 16 i 19 godina“, tvrdeći da je to bilo zakonito prema tadašnjoj granici pristanka.

In the latest decision, Judge Young stated that, even if Misla's claims are true, the case was filed too late under the state's statute of limitations.

"The lawsuit was filed more than 35 years after the alleged events and more than 35 years after the plaintiff turned 18. To be timely, the lawsuit had to be filed within seven years," the judge explained.

These limitations do not apply in California due to the Child Victims Act of 2020, which opened up the possibility of filing lawsuits even after the statute of limitations had expired. The age of consent in that state at the time was 18.

"The parties once traveled to California and had sexual intercourse during that trip. The age of consent in California was and remains 18. Therefore, it was unlawful for the plaintiff and the defendant to have sexual intercourse in California because the plaintiff could not have given legally valid consent," the judge concluded.

In his 1997 memoir, Tyler wrote about a relationship with a teenage girl, not naming Holcomb but mentioning sexual intercourse and custody.

"She was 16, she could be naughty..." he wrote, describing how he became her guardian so they could travel between states together.

"I was 26, and she was barely old enough to drive, and she was extremely attractive, so I fell madly in love. She was my desire, my partner in passionate adventures," is part of the musician's memoir.

In a 2011 essay, Holcomb wrote about the alleged experience:

"I got lost in rock and roll culture. In Steven's world, it was sex, drugs and rock and roll, but it didn't seem any more chaotic than the world I left behind. I didn't know it at the time, but I barely made it out alive. I couldn't believe that he was trying to get me an abortion at that moment. He spent over an hour trying to convince me to do it. He said I was too young to have a child and that the child would be brain damaged because I had been in a fire and was using drugs."