Garth Brooks Files to Move Sexual Assault Case to Federal Court

Garth Brooks is looking to take his complaint against “Jane Roe,” the woman who accused him of sexual assault and battery, to a higher court.

The country singer, 62, filed new documents — since obtained by PEOPLE — on Friday, Nov. 1 to have his complaint against Roe heard in federal court, since the damages that she asked for in her lawsuit against him exceed $75K, which falls within the federal court regulations.

Legal expert Tre Lovell told Entertainment Tonight that the “advantages” of taking his case to federal court include a “quicker trial date,” “broader jury pool” and the idea that judges are more “amenable to dismissing a case” in federal court.

This comes a month after Brooks re-filed his original complaint naming Roe, who used to work as a hairstylist and makeup artist for him and his wife Trisha Yearwood. In court documents, he claimed his decision to do so was due to her attorneys having “disclosed” his identity to the press. 

In response to Brooks’ decision to name her, Roe’s attorneys, Douglas H. Wigdor, Jeanne M. Christensen and Hayley Baker, told PEOPLE in a statement that “Garth Brooks just revealed his true self.”

“With no legal justification, Brooks outed her because he thinks the laws don’t apply to him. On behalf of our client, we will be moving for maximum sanctions against him immediately,” they added. 

In his complaint, the “Friends in Low Places” crooner claimed that he was the “victim of a shakedown” and that Roe “devised a malicious scheme to blackmail” him into paying her “millions of dollars” after he “rejected her request for salaried employment and medical benefits.” 

Brooks also claimed that Roe “threatened” to “publicly disclose false claims” about him that would “imperil” his business and reputation, referencing allegations she made in an Oct. 3 complaint. In that complaint, she alleged the country singer exposed his genitals to her, spoke to her openly about his sexual fantasies and sent sexually explicit text messages to her in 2019. 

He has denied Roe’s allegations, claiming in a statement to PEOPLE that he has “been hassled to no end with threats, lies, and tragic tales of what my future would be if I did not write a check for many millions of dollars.” 

“I want to play music… I want to continue our good deeds going forward. It breaks my heart [that] these wonderful things are in question now. I trust the system, I do not fear the truth, and I am not the man they have painted me to be,” Brooks said in his statement.