Matt Lauer accuser Brooke Nevils would be unable to pursue NYPD charges for alleged Sochi rape
The New York City Police Department would be unable to conduct an investigation into Matt Lauer accuser and Manhattan resident Brooke Nevils’ rape claims because the alleged assault occurred in the Russian city of Sochi -- far from the Big Apple and the NYPD’s jurisdiction, according to authorities and reports.
Nevils revealed to Ronan Farrow that she was raped by former TODAY Show host Lauer in 2014 during the Winter Olympics, according to Variety. Nevils reported the incident to NBC, prompting the peacock network to fire the anchor in 2017.
“Matt Lauer’s conduct was appalling, horrific and reprehensible, as we said at the time,” NBC News told the outlet in a statement. “That’s why he was fired within 24 hours of us first learning of the complaint. Our hearts break again for our colleague.”
Nevils spoke to Farrow as part of his soon-to-be-released book, “Catch and Kill.” She recalled how she had six shots of vodka during a night at the hotel bar with Lauer and fellow Peacock network anchor Meredith Vieira. He invited her back to his room, and obliged, having, as she told Farrow, “no reason to suspect Lauer would be anything but friendly based on prior experience.”
But when she showed up, Lauer allegedly began kissing her and then moved her onto the hotel bed and asked her if “she liked anal sex.”
“She said that she declined several times,” Farrow wrote. “[Nevils] was in the midst of telling him she wasn’t interested again when he ‘just did it,’”
“It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent,” Nevils told Farrow. “It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.”
She did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ request for comment.
Nevils, who lives on the Upper West Side, did not report the incident to law enforcement at the time of the alleged assault, Page Six reported.
“Brooke thought it was all her fault and she stayed that way until the #MeToo movement came along,” a source told the tabloid.
On Thursday, an NYPD spokesperson told FOX Business they had not received any police reports that matched the description of the incident. But even if the police department had received a complaint, the spokesperson said, the department would be limited in what they could do.
“[If] she made a complaint to the NYPD, they would take the info and forward it to Sochi,” a former high-ranking police source told FOX Business. However, “[i]f Sochi asks the NYPD to conduct a [preliminary] investigation they would.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Russia could not immediately be reached for comment.
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Lauer provided a letter to Variety, in which he confirmed the “extramarital affair” with Nevils and called each sexual act “mutual and completely consensual.”
The former staffer continued seeing Lauer fearing, she said, the control he had over her professional life. In 2017, she decided, under advisement from Vieira, to report the incident to human resources.
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The book explains that NBC News President Noah Oppenheim and Andrew Lack, the chairman of MSNBC and NBC News, “were emphasizing that the incident hadn’t been ‘criminal’ or an ‘assault.’”
