Diplo, the Grammy-winning electronic dance music D.J. and producer, was accused in a lawsuit filed on Thursday of sharing sexually explicit images and videos of a woman without her consent.
The woman, who filed the lawsuit anonymously, said in the court filing that she had a seven-year intimate relationship with Diplo, whose full name is Thomas Wesley Pentz, during which he recorded them having sex and later distributed those images and videos against her wishes.
Throughout their relationship, which started in 2016, the woman sometimes gave him permission to record them having sex, the lawsuit said, but told him that she did not want him to share the videos with others.
Last November, the lawsuit said, the woman was contacted by someone who said that she was in possession of images and videos of the woman having sex with Diplo, and that Diplo had sent her the sexually explicit materials on the social media app Snapchat in 2018. The lawsuit said the woman reported the distribution of the materials to the police in Brooklyn, where she lives.
The New York Police Department said in a statement that detectives were investigating a complaint for unlawful dissemination against a man named Thomas Pentz.
A lawyer for Diplo, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement that his client had been subjected to past lawsuits that he described as “bogus.”
“Time and again, Wes has been targeted by a group of untrustworthy individuals and their unscrupulous lawyers, cobbling together falsehoods in search of a meritless payday,” he said in the statement. “This suit seems to be just more of the same, which is why we have no reason to believe that this will end any differently than all the others.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, cites a federal law that prohibits the disclosure of intimate images of a person without the individual’s consent and a state revenge pornography law.
Diplo has been locked in a complex yearslong legal dispute with another woman, Shelly Auguste, who accused him in a lawsuit of sexually assaulting her and posting a sexually explicit image of her on social media through an anonymous Twitter account. In court documents, Diplo vehemently denied the accusations and called Ms. Auguste a “scammer” who “entered my life to try to get money from me.” He filed a lawsuit accusing her of stalking him and distributing sexually explicit photos and videos of him, which she denied in court papers.
“I have been forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars against her bogus allegations,” he said in a court filing, noting that an arbitrator had heard their claims and issued a monetary award in Diplo’s favor.
Diplo, a prolific producer, has collaborated with major pop stars such as Madonna, Beyoncé and Justin Bieber.
Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
