16 women accuse magician David Copperfield

A total of 16 women have accused the American magician David Copperfield of assaults and inappropriate lascivious behavior, according to The Guardian after an intensive investigation.

The time frame to which the accusations refer spans from the late 1980s to 2014.

According to The Guardian, half of the complainants affirm that the events occurred when they were minors.

Before dropping the bombshell, the US edition of The Guardian conducted more than 100 interviews and reviewed judicial documentation and police records, including the official complaints from three women.

In these three complaints, according to The Guardian, the women indicate that they were drugged before having intimate relations with David Copperfield.

The sedatives would have invalidated their consent, if there was any at all.

For the moment, the magician's lawyers have denied the facts. In a statement to the press, they call the accusations "not only completely false but also entirely implausible."

Copperfield's lawyers emphasize that, to their knowledge, their client "never acted inappropriately with anyone, let alone anyone underage".

It is not the first time that David Copperfield has been singled out for alleged abuse. In 2009, a 22-year-old model accused him of assaulting her on the magician's private island in the Bahamas.

The matter becomes even more complicated as media outlets remind the public that David Copperfield's name appeared in the declassified documents of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

According to The Guardian, the complainants now say that they knew David Copperfield was famous for his work as a magician and that they did not dare to denounce him. This changed with the MeToo movement in 2017 when celebrity abusers were no longer protected by their fame.

One of the women who has given her real name, Brittney Lewis, already accused the magician in 2018, saying he gave her substances and physically abused her in 1988 when she was a 17-year-old model.

Other women point out that the magician groped them when they went on stage in one of his performances. Some add that Copperfield promised to give them a boost in their careers as models or on television.

The most extreme case is that of a woman who has preferred to remain anonymous. She accuses the magician of grooming her in 1991 when she was barely 15 years old.

In her statements to The Guardian, she points out that the artist groomed her until she turned 18. At that age, the relationship became consensual. Copperfield's lawyers deny the grooming but do confirm that there was a consensual relationship when she came of age. They point out it lasted for 4 years.

As we await to see what consequences Copperfield will see for the accusations, if any, the BBC remembers that he is one of the most important magicians in the world. He won 21 Emmy Awards and holds 11 Guinness World Records.

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