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(January 7, 2005)

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      *A Chicago woman is looking for the big payback from the Godfather of Soul.  One-time publicist Jacque Hollander has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that James Brown is the cause of her Graves’ disease because he raped her at gunpoint in South Carolina in 1988.

 

      Hollander says she was an aspiring songwriter working as a publicist for Brown in 1988, when while riding with him in a van, Brown pulled over, grabbed a shotgun and raped her. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago seeks $106 million in damages.

 

      "This is what you call a shakedown in its most stupid form," Brown’s attorney Debra Opri told AP. "It's too little, too late and baseless."

 

       Although the statute of limitation on rape ran out a while back, Hollander's attorney Donald Rosen said the lawsuit is valid because Hollander's doctor recently told her the thyroid disease she was diagnosed with in 2000 was caused by the alleged assault.

 

       According to the National Graves' Disease Foundation, stress can contribute to the onset of the disease, but many times the exact cause is unknown.

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