A woman who alleges the Recording Academy’s former chief executive, Michael Greene, drugged and sexually assaulted her in the 1990s received a trial date Monday after her lawyer said it was too soon even to consider settlement talks. Plaintiff Terri McIntyre is now scheduled to begin a 15-day jury trial against Greene and the Grammy organization on July 20, 2026, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled at a morning hearing.
McIntyre, the former executive director of the Academy’s Los Angeles chapter, filed her underlying lawsuit last December. It claims Greene sexually assaulted McIntyre multiple times during her tenure at the nonprofit between 1994 and 1996. The complaint alleges Greene drugged McIntyre’s drink and sexually assaulted her during a work trip to Hawaii. It alleges Greene also forced her to perform oral sex and that he even explicitly stated sex was a condition of her employment. “Greene repeatedly told plaintiff that she needed to ‘give some head to get ahead,’” her lawsuit alleges.
“Do you expect to be pursuing mediation sooner rather than later? Or should I flag this as part of the 1% of my cases that I should assume I’m going to have to try?” Judge H. Jay Ford asked the parties Monday during the first substantive hearing in the case. Academy lawyer Philippe A. Lebel already had told the court that “there’s not a tremendous amount of documents [to be shared] given when the alleged events took place, transpiring in the mid-1990s.”
McIntyre’s lawyer, Neda Lotfi, said that so far, her side hadn’t received any discovery from the defendants and no depositions have been conducted. “We don’t have anything from the defendants, so we’re not in a comfortable position to set a mediation,” Lotfi said. “We know the events happened a long time ago, but that doesn’t give the case any less merit and doesn’t mean there’s not people still alive who were witnesses to events that occurred.”
The parties said they were working together well enough to set up depositions without the court’s management. Lebel said his side previously met with McIntyre’s legal team and managed to prevent an early battle over the complaint. “We had intended to file a demurrer that we were able to avoid with the meet and confer process,” Lebel said. Indeed, McIntyre dismissed two of the four claims against the Recording Academy in a March filing. The claims she dropped involved California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. The two claims still pending against the Grammy organization involve alleged negligence related to the hiring and management of Greene.
The Recording Academy said in a prior statement to Rolling Stone that “in light of pending litigation, the Academy declines to comment on these allegations, which occurred nearly 30 years ago. Today’s Recording Academy has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to sexual misconduct, and we will remain steadfast in that commitment.”
For his part, Greene recently filed an answer to McIntyre’s complaint that denied “each, every and all of the allegations” in her complaint.
Greene served as CEO of the Recording Academy from the late 1980s until 2002. He was credited with expanding the Grammy Awards ceremony into an international TV event, but his tenure largely ended in disgrace after extensive reporting in the Los Angeles Times detailed sexual harassment allegations along with claims that he abused his power in the music industry for his own personal gain.
In 2001, the Recording Academy reportedly paid a $650,000 settlement to a former Grammy executive after she accused Greene of harassment and abuse. Greene later resigned under pressure in 2002 after the Recording Academy launched an investigation into his tenure. He denied any wrongdoing both in the 1990s and when he stepped down.
From Rolling Stone US
