A man who made false sexual assault claims against Hollywood executives has been jailed for four years.
Los Angeles resident Rovier Carrington, 34, was sentenced on Monday following his guilty plea to making a false declaration before a court during a lawsuit in 2018, the Southern District of New York Attorney’s Office announced on Monday.
Carrington filed a civil lawsuit in which he accused Hollywood executives of sexually assaulting and defrauding him. The suit sought $100m in damages.
In announcing the sentence, US Attorney Damian Williams called Carrington’s scheme to collect millions through the lies a “brazen attempt to manipulate the court system”.
In the lawsuit, Carrington submitted several fake email chains to the court that alleged to show he was sexually assaulted and defrauded.
He claimed that he was the great-grandson of one of The Three Stooges actors and was also a writer and actor, but the alleged assaults had prevented the production of his reality television show.
While in court, Carrington was confronted by the emails, yet he submitted a false affidavit that swore that the emails were genuine.
To help cover up his lies, Carrington deleted two of the email accounts, returned a phone he had used to send the emails and did not show up to court to be questioned about the emails, the attorney’s office said.
After this, the court decided to dismiss the civil case and imposed sanctions on Carrington, stating: “These emails were fabricated, and that was bad enough, but the deactivation of the accounts, the efforts undertaken to really foreclose what is necessary discovery in this case, and the stream of lies to me, necessitate the sanctions that I am imposing.”
Carrington did not stop there. After his case was dismissed, he attempted to bring it to another court, violated an injunction issued by the court and accused the court of taking bribes.
He was arrested in California in 2021 on a perjury charge for fabricating the emails.
Carrington eventually pleaded guilty but still went on to file another lawsuit seeking $1bn “making similar allegations”.
On top of his four-year sentence, he was also given three years of supervised release.
His sentence was more than twice what prosecutors had requested, according to the Associated Press.
The prosecutors wrote in a pre-sentence submission that Carrington’s fraudulent behaviour could encourage “the false perception that many such claims are fraudulent, chilling others from bringing meritorious sexual assault claims”.
Carrington’s defence team said that their client was “remorseful” for the mistakes he made and “looks forward to moving past this case and to the next stage of his life”.
