A Los Angeles County judge abruptly recused herself Tuesday from a high-profile sexual assault lawsuit against Steven Tyler, marking an unexpected twist just two weeks before a trial was set to begin over claims the Aerosmith frontman abused plaintiff Julia Misley when she was a minor in the 1970s.
At an afternoon hearing in Torrance, California, Judge Patricia A. Young stated that she disclosed a potential conflict to both sides on Monday and asked how they wished to proceed. When a lawyer for Misley said the parties met but could not agree to waive the issue, Young said she had no choice but to step aside.
A source told Rolling Stone that Young informed the parties she had been consulting with another judge about the long-running lawsuit and only recently learned that was a problem because the other judge had previously been removed from the case for undisclosed reasons.
“As a result of the parties not waiving, I will officially disqualify,” Judge Young said from the bench. “Once I discovered the basis for my disqualification, I did not take any further action, so anything that was an open question as of last Friday … I have not ruled on those, and I will not rule on those.”
Judge Young said the upcoming Sept. 28 trial date would “automatically” be taken off calendar. It was not immediately clear when the case would be reassigned or a new trial date set. Attempts to reach lawyers on both sides for comment were not immediately successful.
In her lawsuit initially filed in December 2022 and first reported by Rolling Stone, Misley claimed that Tyler sexually abused her for years beginning in 1973, when she was a high school sophomore, and he was 25. Tyler denied the claims and asked the court to dismiss the entire lawsuit, arguing that he lived with Misley in Boston for the vast majority of their relationship, where the age of consent was 16. He argued that Massachusetts law governed the relationship even when he traveled with Misley, formerly Julia Holcomb, in other states.
Tyler succeeded in getting much of Misley’s case dismissed, including allegations tied to alleged conduct in Oregon and Washington. But Misley and her lawyers persuaded the court that Tyler was still subject to local laws when he traveled with her in California and that the state’s Child Victims Act, enacted in 2019, had temporarily revived otherwise expired claims by giving survivors of childhood sexual abuse a three-year window to sue.
Misley claimed in her lawsuit that Tyler invited her backstage when they first met in Portland in 1973, a month after her 16th birthday. She said he had sex with her that night. They had sex again in Seattle, at the next stop on his concert tour, she claimed. The age of consent in Oregon and Washington at the time was 18.
Misley claimed Tyler also brought her to California for an awards show and dragged her naked onto an elevator so he could have sex with her in a pool. She alleged she was groomed into a three-year relationship in which Tyler became her legal guardian.
In his 2011 memoir, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?, Tyler recalled the guardianship arrangement, noting their age difference. “I was so in love, I almost took a teen bride. I went and slept at her parents’ house for a couple of nights, and her parents fell in love with me, signed papers over for me to have custody, so I wouldn’t get arrested if I took her out of state,” he wrote.
Tyler recounted having sex with Misley on a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston. He also described the incident that Misley says took place at the Beverly Hills hotel. He wrote that he and Misley were naked in the hotel elevator after having sex in a hot tub, and “when the doors opened, there was an Amish family staring at us like figures in an oil painting.”
In a series of recent pretrial rulings, Judge Young said Misley could present evidence to the jury that Tyler “held himself out to be her guardian,” as well as testimony about how she viewed her circumstances at the time. But in a victory for Tyler, the judge ruled that jurors could hear evidence Misley had “consented” to the relationship.
In a controversial ruling, Judge Young said jurors would have to decide whether Tyler occupied a “position of authority” over Misley. If they found that he did not, she said, evidence of consent would be relevant because “consent is a defense.”
It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether the next judge assigned to the case would revisit Judge Young’s evidentiary rulings heading into a new trial date.
