Lawyers for a former child model accusing X-Men director Bryan Singer of sex abuse said on Tuesday they want to get off the case because their relationship with the accuser has deteriorated.
Attorneys Jeff Herman and Mark Gallagher filed a motion in US District Court in Honolulu asking to withdraw as counsel for Michael Egan. They say they no longer talk to Egan except through a new lawyer.
Egan, now 31, accuses Singer in a lawsuit of sexually abusing him during trips to Hawaii when he was 17 in 1999. Singer has denied the allegations.
Singer’s lawyer, Marty Singer, said in a statement that Egan’s lawyers were willing to settle the case for a low amount, demonstrating a “lack of confidence in their chances for success”. The amount was not specified.
“Bryan and his team will continue to fight to clear his name and intend to pursue charges of malicious prosecution against Egan,” Marty Singer said.
Gallagher and Herman said in their filing that their relationship with Egan “has broken down completely and cannot be repaired.”
The lawyers said they could not give a full explanation except under seal.
Egan previously dropped three similar Hawaii lawsuits against other Hollywood figures. One of the men, former network television executive Garth Ancier, responded with a malicious-prosecution lawsuit against Egan, saying the accusations damaged his reputation.
The lawsuits were filed under an unusual state law that created a window for civil cases in sex-abuse cases where the statute of limitations has passed.
The lawyer shuffle in Egan’s case against Singer comes as the court is scheduled to consider a motion from Singer to dismiss the case on September 9. Lawyers for Singer asked on Tuesday to keep the hearing as scheduled.
As part of that motion, Singer filed a signed declaration saying that he was never in Hawaii during the time Egan claimed in the lawsuit and didn’t have sexual contact with him. Singer said he was working on the first X-Men film in the Toronto area at the time.
Meanwhile Singer is no longer named in a sexual abuse case filed against Hollywood executives by an anonymous British actor, reports The Guardian.
The filmmaker had been the subject of a lawsuit alleging he assaulted the young man at an after-party for 2006’s Superman Returns, when the alleged victim was 17. But a Los Angeles court has accepted Singer’s motion to dismiss, which was made several weeks ago, on the grounds that there was no legal basis for the suit, and that it was improperly brought. Hollywood producer Gary Goddard, who directed the 1987 children’s fantasy Masters of the Universe, remains a target of the unidentified British actor’s suit.
