As Chris Brown speeds toward a February trial in the case of a housekeeper who was mauled by a security dog at his Los Angeles house five years ago, the singer is sharing his detailed description of the incident, in his own words, for the first time.
Brown, 36, has filed portions of his April deposition in the civil court matter as part of his new request that the judge strike the housekeeper’s claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress and punitive damages from her lawsuit. Brown’s description stands in stark contrast to the housekeeper’s own harrowing account of what happened.
In her lawsuit and related filings, housekeeper Maria Avila says she was removing trash from Brown’s house on Dec. 12, 2020, when a large brown dog “viciously” attacked her, ripping chunks of flesh and even bone from her face and arm as she “screamed in terror and called out for help.” Avila alleges Brown came outside, stood over her while speaking on a cell phone, and then “fled the scene as [she] lay on the driveway in a pool of blood, bleeding to death.” (Avila says she required emergency surgery and now lives with extensive disfigurement, nerve damage, and loss of vision.)
For years, Brown has been fighting the lawsuit and a related complaint from Avila’s sister, Patricia, who was also at the house that day and allegedly ran outside to find her sister “covered in blood while she was screaming and crying for help.” In the excerpts of Brown’s April deposition filed with the court Monday, Brown says he heard no screaming, saw no blood, at least initially, and only left the house because his manager advised him to do so once it was clear that paramedics were on their way.
Asked how the terrifying incident unfolded, Brown said he was in his upstairs bedroom when he heard the dog, named Hades, growling outside. “Hearing the actual growl is what actually shocked me, to make me go downstairs,” he answered. Brown said once he reached the driveway, he encountered the housekeeper “face down” on the ground.
“I didn’t touch her. I bent down and I looked. I was – I was making sure she was breathing and then from there, I ran and put the dogs away and yelled and told the security guard to come over,” Brown testified under oath. Asked how he could be certain Avila was breathing, Brown said it was clear. “I could see her chest moving,” he said.
Asked if he could remember saying anything to Avila, Brown said he didn’t speak to her. “No. Because she was – she was out. It was no communication,” he testified. “I got security to make sure she was okay.”
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Brown said that after he rounded up all three of his dogs, including Hades, who was acting “nervous,” he called his manager while his security guard was allegedly on the phone with a 911 dispatcher.
“Mr. Wilson told you to get the hell out of there, right?” Avila’s lawyer asked, to which Brown responded, “yes, ma’am.” The lawyer then asked if Brown felt “bad” about leaving his house under those circumstances.
“I’m not bad – I’m not feeling bad about leaving the house, more concerned about – about her, making sure she was okay,” he responded. Brown recalled that Avila’s sister was outside by that point, and that someone, possibly the sister, brought Avila a towel. He said Avila was turned by the time he left, though he wasn’t sure how she ended up in the new position.
“I didn’t see blood initially. I think I saw blood a little bit. I was kind of squeamish with blood, so like I think when – once I seen like she had – there was blood somewhere, I kind of – kind of didn’t all the way look. I didn’t want to – I didn’t want to see the damage or whatever that happened,” he testified. Brown said he couldn’t remember if the blood he saw was “bright red,” but that he recalled the color of the “brownish” dried blood on his driveway when he eventually returned.
Brown said he was not involved in the decision by his security to remove Hades from the premises before law enforcement arrived, nor was he involved, he says, in having a security guard drive the animal up to Humboldt County, where the dog, described as a Caucasian Shepherd, was abandoned.
“So if you learned that one of your security guys took the dog up to Humboldt, loaded him onto his car, tied him to a tree, and left him there, would you have fired the guard for doing that?” Avila’s lawyer asked. Brown said he would have let his manager handle the situation had he known. He said the dog actually belonged to his head of security and was living on his property as a deterrent to potential stalkers or home invaders.
In her own deposition conducted in October 2023, Avila said the dog pounced on her without warning. “It attacked me on my face, my hand, and it pierced its teeth on my foot,” she said. “I didn’t see it, I simply felt it – it was something really big.” Asked if she saw Brown take the dog away, Avila said no, though she believed it was Brown who called 911. She said from there, “I only heard the car that left.” She disputed Brown’s claim that she was told not to go outside the house without permission.
In his motion filed Monday, Brown argues that Avila failed to substantiate her claim that Brown acted with malice or engaged in any “outrageous conduct.” For that reason, her claims for emotional distress and punitive damages should be dismissed before trial, he says. Avila’s lawyer, Nancy Doumanian, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Avila’s lawsuit and the related negligence complaint filed by her sister have been consolidated into the same trial set for Feb. 9, 2026.
Brown’s new motion to dismiss the punitive and emotional damages claims has a hearing set for Jan. 15. Maria’s husband is a co-plaintiff in her lawsuit. He claims the harm to his wife caused him “loss of consortium damages.” Brown, meanwhile, is being sued alongside his company, Black Pyramid, LLC.
“Defendants anticipate that plaintiffs will point to defendants’ post-incident conduct in support of their punitive damages claim. However, any actions defendants took after the incident are wholly irrelevant, because these actions in no way contributed to the occurrence of the incident,” Brown’s lawyers wrote in his motion filed Monday.
“Plaintiffs will likely argue that defendants’ decision to drive Hades to another location and have him euthanized was an attempt to ‘conceal evidence,’ and thus was oppressive, fraudulent, and malicious,” the filing continued. “To the contrary, it was an attempt to remove what had just become an unpredictable animal from a terrible situation and ensure nothing like this would happen again. The intent was not to ‘conceal’ or ‘destroy’ evidence but rather to prevent the risk of future harm. For these reasons, plaintiffs cannot provide any evidence to support a claim for punitive damages.”
In a separate filing in June, Brown’s defense said that no security footage of the incident exists. “[No video] was ever recorded due to the cameras having been broken on the date of the incident as a result of a break-in or robbery that had occurred on the property a few weeks prior,” the defense statement to the court said. “The head of security, Emil Lewis, testified to this under oath during his deposition.”
From Rolling Stone US
