On Law & Order: SVU, Diane Neal played a no-nonsense assistant district attorney who prosecuted sexually based offenses.
In real life, she now claims she was the victim of sexual assault and more at the hands of her magician ex.
Neal, who played ADA Casey Novak for a whole decade on the long-running procedural, is in the middle of a legal battle with ex-boyfriend J.B. Benn, a magician known for hobnobbing with celebs. The two met in 2013 and dated for five years until she broke things off — and it was anything but a clean break.
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On Wednesday, the actress released an amended complaint against him, claiming he “defrauded her of millions,” physically and sexually assaulted her, isolated her from her friends, and “destroyed her reputation.”
Her new complaint, which was partially published by The Daily Beast, reads:
“As a result of Benn’s depraved and unconscionable conduct against Neal, and his attempts to continue the campaign of terror and intimidation against her, Neal — fearing for life and her safety, and at great personal cost — has been forced to live in hiding rather than pursue her professional career.”
Whoa, what??
What exactly is this “depraved and unconscionable” conduct?
[Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Animal Cruelty]
She claims in August 2017 was the first time she’d ever suffered domestic abuse. Per the legal filing:
“Benn instigated an argument with Neal, then violently assaulted her, repeatedly kicking her. Benn left Neal bruised on the floor. After Neal begged that Benn leave the home, Benn refused and spent the remainder of the evening in the driveway [in] order to prevent her from fleeing.”
Neal described to The Daily Beast:
“I’m so upset because it’s the first time that anyone has raised a hand to me… and it wasn’t a hand by the way. He never uses his hands. He kicks.”
She told the outlet the magician is very protective of his hands, often wearing gloves.
Three months later, per the complaint, he assaulted her again on Thanksgiving. She says Benn promised to drive them into the city to a gathering of friends for the holiday “and encouraged Neal to take a muscle relaxant.” Then he changed his mind about driving — and since she couldn’t drive, they wouldn’t be able to go to the party. Per the complaint, “after a brief verbal argument, Benn again attacked Neal, again kicking her until she was black and blue.”
Neal says she later found out he had taken her phone and texted their friends:
“D’s a disaster. She’s not going to make it.”
Ugh. The gaslighting makes it so much worse. Even scarier, one friend told The Daily Beast that Benn had called him all the time to “create a narrative” about Neal — and once told him she was “suicidal, crazy, and narcissistic.”
Suicidal? That is an insanely scary thing for an abusive person to make up about you. We mean, what exactly does that achieve?? Thankfully the friend knew that wasn’t her and eventually just blocked Benn’s number.
Finally, Neal claims in February 2018 he assaulted her again, this time while wearing hiking boots, and caused “widespread contusions and/or hematomas” on both her legs.
But Neal says the violence wasn’t just against her.
She also accuses Benn of animal cruelty. She believes he slashed her toy poodle’s throat and told her the cat had done it with its claws.
Separately, her cat disappeared during a period while it was nursing kittens — so it wouldn’t have just run off. She claims Benn “bragged that he ‘bashed the cat’s brains in.'”
After they finally split, the transgressions didn’t end right away.
Neal claims she woke up one night in March 2018, days after she had broken up with Benn, to find him sexually assaulting her — and apparently recording it on his cell phone.
In the Spring of 2019, over a year after the breakup, Benn was actually arrested for stalking after “driving by Neal’s residence seven times in 15 minutes for no legitimate purpose while Neal was in her driveway.” The charge was reduced to disorderly conduct.
On top of those horrifying accusations, Neal also claims the magician was victimizing her financially. From the complaint:
“In early 2018, while Benn was traveling, Neal discovered documentation in Benn’s home office in the [upstate] Hurley Residence that revealed that Benn — without Neal’s knowledge or consent — had fraudulently transferred monies from her bank accounts, stolen her personal checks, and used her credit-card accounts to pay for his personal expenses. In total, Benn has robbed Neal of hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
She also claims she paid Benn over $100K toward the home they shared, but he lied about putting her name on the title. He now says she never gave him any such money and only helped him pick out the place.
The amended complaint makes it very clear the money was the motive for the control and isolation from her friends:
“Unbeknownst to Neal, Benn — in order to ensure he could continue to perpetrate his scheme to defraud her of the millions of dollars of lifetime earnings — was actively and deliberately isolating Neal from her friends, colleagues, business manager, managers and agent.”
As for Benn, he calls the claim of sexual assault “completely false” and says Neal is just adding on to bolster her case about the money:
“The only thing that [Neal’s] papers prove is that she is so beholden to her anger over our failed relationship that she will swear to anything, without regard to the truth, to paint me in a false light and to try get [sic] from this court what she wants…”
And what does she want?
The amount in damages has not been disclosed, but considering she’s accusing him of stealing “hundreds of thousands of dollars” we imagine it’s a hefty sum.
What do YOU think about this awful case??
[Image via NBC/YouTube/HRC/WENN.]
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