In 2024, the musician Anna "Nesey" Gallons accused Julian Koster, a member of Neutral Milk Hotel, of grooming her and sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager. In a series of Instagram posts, Gallons wrote that she and Koster began a phone and email correspondence in 2000, when she was 15, and that he wrote that she was his "soulmate." She also says that this turned into a sexual relationship and that he sexually assaulted her twice in 2005. In response, Koster said that he did, in fact, have a sexual relationship with the 16-year-old Gallons, but he also described himself as "the victim of intimidation, manipulation, and abuse by Nesey Gallons for many years." Now, Koster has been granted a protection from abuse order against Gallons and her partner.
Nesey Gallons was a member of Elephant 6, the Athens, Georgia collective that included Neutral Milk Hotel, and she played in the Music Tapes, an E6 band led by Koster. In a statement after the accusations, Koster said that his "consensual relationship" with Gallons began when she was 16, the age of consent in Georgia at the time, and he was 28, and that it continued until 2008. Koster wrote, "It was wrong to allow the relationship to happen at all and I’ve apologized to Nesey many times for that. I should have been more responsible about the age gap, but I deny all the other accusations she’s made."
On Saturday, the Bangor Daily News reported that a district judge in Bangor, Maine, where Gallons lives, found Gallons to be a "credible threat" to Koster's safety. She's barred from contacting Koster or owning weapons until February 2028. In his court filing, Koster wrote, "My friendship with Anna has been tumultuous, and I suffered years of emotional, verbal, financial, and more recently, physical abuse." Koster claims that Gallons and her partner "demanded that I join a polyamorous relationship with both of them and co-parent their children — or else (i.e., they would destroy me, destroy themselves, etc.)"
In his court filing, Koster accuses both Gallons and her partner of sexual assault. He says that he stayed with them for three weeks in 2024 and that they yelled at him, calling him names like "bastard" and "scoundrel" and exerting "tremendous pressure" to have sex with them. Koster claims that he eventually gave into their sexual demands after suffering from a panic attack and that he felt "emotionally brutalized" afterwards. He says that he cut off contact with them and changed his number afterward and that Gallons accused him of grooming shortly after that.
Gallons and her partner filed counter protective orders against Koster, which were denied after Koster's order was granted. You can read the full Bangor Daily News report here.
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.
