LOS ANGELES — DeMario Jackson, whose behavior on the "Bachelor" franchise led to a misconduct investigation, has been accused of raping two women.
On Tuesday, two Jane Does filed a complaint against Jackson in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging that Jackson sexually assaulted them. In the legal document, both women claim that they separately went on dates with Jackson that ended with him forcing them into nonconsensual sex.
Both Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 subsequently reported their alleged assaults to the Rape Treatment Center at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center.
Jackson, 35, did not immediately respond to the Los Angeles Times' request for comment.
Both women claim that they met Jackson after his stint on two reality television programs. In May 2017, he first appeared on ABC's "The Bachelorette" as one of 31 men vying for the affection of lead Rachel Lindsay. Early on in the season, Jackson was kicked off the show by Lindsay after a woman showed up on set claiming to be his girlfriend.
But after the show wrapped, he was cast on "Bachelor in Paradise," a spinoff in which previous contestants from "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" compete for love on the beaches of Mexico. Production began in June, but it quickly came to a halt when Warner Bros., which produces the series, announced it was suspending filming after becoming "aware of allegations of misconduct" on set that required "a thorough investigation."
Though Warner Bros. did not name the cast members at the center of the investigation, Jackson and his co-star Corinne Olympios later publicly confirmed that they were the parties in question. Shortly after cameras began rolling in Sayulita, Jackson and Olympios were drinking and kissing one another, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. That evening, the sources told the Times, they engaged in sex acts in a hot tub while in view of cast and crew.
The following morning, the sources said, producers spoke to Olympios about the encounter with Jackson. She told them she had been so inebriated that she could not recall the incident, causing producers to report the situation to studio executives. Production was suspended shortly thereafter.
Jackson denied any misconduct occurred. Olympios released a statement in which she described herself as "a victim" who had "little memory of that night" but said that "something bad obviously took place." (Olympios, Warner Bros. and ABC did not respond to requests for comment on this story.)
A little more than a week after launching an internal investigation, however, Warner Bros. announced that the inquiry did "not support any charge of misconduct by a cast member ... (or) that the safety of any cast member was ever in jeopardy." When production on "Bachelor in Paradise" resumed in late June, Jackson and Olympios did not return to Mexico. Host Chris Harrison led the remaining cast members in a discussion about consent.
Eight months later, Jane Doe 1 said she met Jackson on a dating app. She had never seen "Bachelor in Paradise," but when she showed her friends Jackson's Bumble profile, she said they brushed over the misconduct allegations.
"They were like, 'No, he's trustworthy. Afterwards, Corinne said nothing actually happened,'" said Doe 1, now 26, in an interview.
Two months after Olympios described herself as a victim, ABC aired a sit-down between her and Harrison in which she said that she had "nothing against" Jackson. "There's no way for you guys to know that she's mentally checked out," she told Harrison, referring to herself in the third person. "That Corinne is not here right now. Which is beyond scary, but it is what it is, I guess. I don't think that it's anyone's fault."
Doe 1, then a senior at the University of Southern California, felt comfortable going out with Jackson and met him at a bar in downtown L.A. for their first date. According to the legal complaint, at the end of the night, he offered to drive her back to campus. As she went to exit the car, he kissed her and suddenly "exposed his penis," according to the lawsuit.
"Jane Doe 1 was shocked and felt trapped," the complaint says. "She was not ready for this meeting to escalate so quickly. In an attempt to set boundaries, Jane Doe 1 told Defendant that his behavior was unacceptable."
He apologized, and feeling he was sincere, Doe 1 said she continued to see Jackson. On their third date, the complaint says, they had consensual sex with a condom.
Then, on Feb. 16, 2018, Doe 1 was out with her friends in Chinatown when she said Jackson began repeatedly texting and calling her. After he "demanded" to know her location, she told him where she was, and he "appeared intoxicated" when he arrived, according to the complaint. He refused to pay the cover charge at the establishment and "began making a scene," so to avoid further embarrassment, she invited him to her home to "sleep it off," the complaint says.
At her apartment, she told him "there would be no sexual activity between them." But as she began to fall asleep, she said she felt Jackson's body on top of hers. She pushed him off and told him she did not want to have sex, but according to the complaint he continued to try to get on top of her two more times despite her resistance.
"On the fourth and final attempt, defendant DeMario Jackson pinned Jane Doe 1 down on the bed," the complaint says. "(He) then forcefully sexually assaulted Jane Doe 1 by violently shoving his unprotected penis into her unlubricated vagina."
Doe 1 said she repeatedly screamed "no" despite barely being able to breathe.
"I couldn't move, so all I could think to do was to say, 'No, no, stop!' And he just ignored me. It was like he didn't even hear me," she recalled through tears. "I just kept thinking: 'Just keep saying no. No one can ever take that away from you. If you're going to die, you'll know you fought the only way you could.'"
Suddenly, Doe 1 said, Jackson looked at her and said: "Tell me you love me." She did not respond, but he kept urging her to utter the words.
"He was getting more aggressive, and I felt like I had to say it or it was going to get worse. So I just said it. It was like he wanted complete control over every part of me," she said. "He made me say it again, and then he finished and rolled off of me. He looked at me and said, 'Are you OK?' And I'm literally sitting there shaking."
She told him to "get the f--- out" and he gathered his things, accidentally leaving his underwear behind, she said.
She then locked herself in her room and immediately began reaching out to her family and friends, though it was the middle of the night.
"Please," she texted a friend in a message exchange she provided to the Times. "I'm shaking."
"Are u with Demario," the friend responded.
"Yes and it got bad," Doe 1 replied.
A few hours later, Doe 1 said, her friend arrived at her apartment and drove her to the Rape Treatment Center. According to a medical document reviewed by the Times, Doe 1 received a sexual assault examination, STD testing and antibiotics at the facility on Feb. 17, 2018. A report of the alleged assault was submitted to the Los Angeles Police Department that same day.
LAPD Detective Esther MyaPe, who handled Doe 1 and 2's cases, did not respond to the Times' request for comment on this story. According to a declination memo provided to the Times by the L.A. district attorney's office, the case was reviewed and the DA declined to prosecute Jackson in April 2021 on two counts of sexual assault "due to insufficiency of the evidence."
After that, Doe 1 said, she began seeking legal counsel. One of the attorneys she spoke to was Keith Davidson, who she said was initially reluctant to take her case until he coincidentally received a call from another woman who claimed she had been assaulted by Jackson: Jane Doe 2.
The second woman, now 28, first met Jackson in March 2019. She was standing at the Amtrak station in San Diego, waiting for a train back to L.A., when the two struck up a friendly conversation and then parted ways.
Later, she realized that she'd actually seen Jackson before, on "The Bachelorette." As a fan of the franchise, she was familiar with what had happened on his season of "Bachelor in Paradise" but said she thought, "Well, enough time has passed. Maybe he's changed." By then, Olympios and Jackson were publicly friendly again, photographed together at Disneyland and a Maxim party.
So Doe 2 decided to send Jackson a direct message on Instagram. They engaged in casual conversation until July 2020, she said, when Jackson asked her on a date.
"In discussing where the couple should go on a date, (he) announced that he could not go to any public setting as he claimed that he would be recognized from his time on 'The Bachelorette' and that his time with Jane Doe 2 would thereby be 'ruined,'" the complaint reads. "He convinced Jane Doe 2 that his private home was the only viable option for their date."
"I was thinking, 'OK, dude, you're not, like, Obama,'" Doe 2 told the Times. "It was kind of weird, but it didn't raise that much of a red flag because I've been on dates to guys' apartments where nothing bad has happened."
At his home, Doe 2 said, she and Jackson drank wine and spoke for a couple of hours. As she went to leave, he kissed her, and the two proceeded to his bedroom. When Jackson began taking off her clothes, she told him she could not have sex because she was menstruating.
But he "was incessant about wanting to have sex" and requested they have anal intercourse instead, the complaint says. She agreed, but after a few seconds she begged him to stop because "it literally hurt so much," echoing the complaint's allegation that she was "uncomfortable." She said he stopped but then grabbed her head and forced his penis into her mouth, she also stated in the lawsuit.
"He was holding me down with his whole body weight, and I started to kind of choke a little bit because I couldn't breathe," she said in the interview. "Somehow I eventually got my hands free and pushed him off. But then he started to have (vaginal) sex with me. I told him 'no,' and he said, 'It's fine, it's fine. It's just the tip.'"
Finally, the complaint says, she gathered the strength to push him off of her again. He then begged her to try anal sex again. After he ejaculated, she said, she ran to the bathroom and discovered she was bleeding, per the complaint.
"The tampon was lodged so far up in me that when I went to the Rape Treatment Center the next day, they literally had to get tongs to pull it out of me," Doe 2 said in the interview.
In shock, she said she ran upstairs to grab her clothes and leave. Jackson urged her to stay, promising to cuddle her during the night and cook her breakfast in the morning, she said.
She got in her car and immediately drove to a friend's house. The following morning, she visited the same UCLA center where Jane Doe 1 had reported her alleged assault in 2018. A July 8, 2020, report from the medical facility provided to the Times lists Doe 2's diagnosis as "assault by other bodily force."
After her examination, Doe 2 said, she met with the LAPD. Detectives asked her to "perform a ruse where we would call him, they would give me specific questions and they would try to get him to admit what happened," she recalled.
On July 13, with LAPD officers present, Doe 2 FaceTimed Jackson and recorded the conversation on a video camera.
"I'm scared s---less. I'm over here pacing, going crazy. I'm going nuts," Jackson said in the conversation, which was reviewed by the Times. "I'm begging you ... I'm not like that. This is not who I am. I've been through some crazy s--- in my f------ life with some other stuff, and this is not who I am."
"So you're admitting you made a mistake?" Doe 2 asked.
"One hundred percent," Jackson replied. "Just for the fact that I see the hurt in your eyes."
"You're sorry for putting yourself in me without my permission?" she continued.
"One hundred percent," he said. "I pride myself on reading people and knowing the situation and I'm so sorry."
"Can you also just, like, validate me — the fact that I said 'no' and that you did it anyway?"
"One hundred percent," Jackson replied. "That happened as well. I'm sorry for that. I've said that a million times. I'm breathing all hard and heavy. Your hands are clammy? My body is f------ clammy."
Afterward, Doe 2 said, detectives were encouraged by how well the phone call had gone. But the investigation was later dropped. Like Doe 1, Doe 2 began reaching out to lawyers. Three declined to take her case before she reached Davidson, who had recently heard from Doe 1.
When she learned there was another woman who had also been allegedly assaulted by Jackson, Doe 2 said, she burst into tears. Both women now attend therapy but say they struggle with anxiety; Doe 1 said she was forced to take disability leave from work.
"I cut the wound open again because I feel this strong sense of wanting to protect other women," said Doe 1. "When you go through a moment where you feel like you're going to die, that moment doesn't ever leave your body, mind or soul. I felt like I was going to die, and nobody cared. I'm going to make them care. If this moment was for nothing else, I just want it to help someone. I couldn't live with the idea that I should just be quiet and move on."
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(Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.)
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