Peter Yarrow of folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary fame, has been accused of sexually assaulting a girl in a Manhattan hotel room 52 years ago.
According to a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Yarrow developed a friendship with a young fan who attended several shows.
In 1969, she went to New York City after running away from her family’s home in St. Paul, Minnesota and called Yarrow, who arranged to meet her in the lobby of a Lower East Side hotel.
The woman, now 68, alleges that Yarrow raped her and, the next day, bought her a plane ticket back home and told her to leave.
The lawsuit claims the woman “has been suffering the effects of Yarrow’s rape ever since” and is “unable to fully describe all of the details of that abuse and the extent of the harm she suffered as a result.”
She seeking compensatory and punitive damages, alleging sexual abuse of a child, negligence, assault, battery and infliction of emotional distress.
The lawsuit, filed by a firm in Buffalo, New York, also names Peter, Paul & Mary Co. as a defendant because it “should have known that Yarrow was dangerous to children and posed a threat of sexual abuse to children.”
Yarrow, now 82, pleaded guilty in 1970 to taking “indecent liberties” with a 14-year-old girl who went to his Washington, D.C. hotel room with her 17-year-old sister to get an autograph. He served three months in prison.
In 1981, then-president Jimmy Carter pardoned Yarrow for the crime.
In a 2019 statement to The New York Times, the singer said: "I fully support the current movements demanding equal rights for all and refusing to allow continued abuse and injury — most particularly of a sexual nature, of which I am, with great sorrow, guilty.
"I do not seek to minimize or excuse what I have done and I cannot adequately express my apologies and sorrow for the pain and injury I have caused in this regard.”
Yarrow has not yet commented on the lawsuit. His accuser, who iHeartRadio.ca has chosen not to identity, could not be reached.
Peter, Paul and Mary are best known for the 1963 hit “Puff (The Magic Dragon)” and their covers of John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Mary Travers died in 2009.