The Metro Boomin verdict is in. Last October, a woman named Vanessa LeMaistre sued the Atlanta music producer, real name Leland T. Wayne, for an alleged rape in 2016. Rolling Stone reports that a jury of five men and three women found Wayne not liable on any of the four counts in the suit, determining that LeMaistre had not proven her case against him.
In the lawsuit, LeMaistre alleged that she "blacked out" after ingesting Xanax and alcohol given to her by Wayne at a Los Angeles area recording studio, then woke up in a nearby hotel to find Wayne raping her while she drifted in and out of consciousness. On the witness stand, Wayne testified that the sex was consensual and that there was "no way in the world" he raped her. He said the first he heard of the accusation was when LeMaistre filed the suit.
During the trial, Wayne's lawyer Justin H. Sanders called LeMaistre's case "preposterous" and said, "This whole lawsuit was born out of a drug den in Peru. In the jungle." His comment referred to a 2024 trip to Peru in which LeMaistre participated in an "Ayahuasca ceremony" in which she ingested the hallucinogen. In a handwritten note titled "Plan Ayahuasca Gave Me," LeMaistre wrote of her plan to "blow the whistle on Metro Boomin" and publish "date rape" allegations on social media. Other lines from the note include "We're asking for 3.4 million to 3.7 million" and "P.S. I am a medium."
LeMaistre testified that in 2016 she reported the alleged rape to a mental health professional from a treatment center called Prototypes who she was seeing at the time. LeMaistre herself was the only witness her side called to testify. Her lawyer, Michael J. Willemin, cited his client's traumatic life as the daughter of Haitian immigrants and the death of nine-month-old son just before she met Wayne. According to Willemin, LeMaistre was not interested in a sexual relationship but was interested in connecting with Wayne as a friend who was also grieving. "She has beliefs that I don’t have, maybe people in this court don’t have," Willemin said. "But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t sexually assaulted."
Young Thug, who was the defendant in Georgia's longest ever criminal trial, attended the Metro Boomin trial and watched Wayne give his testimony. "I’m just here to support him," he told reporters.
If you or someone you know is undergoing sexual abuse, please visit rainn.org or contact the National Sexual Assault Helpline at 1-800-656-4673.
