Smokey Robinson Criminal Investigation Grows as 5th Woman Goes to Police

Another woman has filed a sexual misconduct police report against Smokey Robinson, widening the criminal investigation that began when four of the Motown legend’s former housekeepers leveled bombshell rape allegations two months ago.

A sergeant at the Malibu/Lost Hills station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department tells Billboard on Friday (July 25) that a woman came in last week to report sexual battery claims against Robinson.

This woman, whose identity is not known, is now the fifth alleged sexual assault victim to report Robinson to criminal authorities in Los Angeles. An anonymous group of four former housekeepers for the 85-year-old singer filed a police report against him in May, after filing a $50 million civil lawsuit that claimed Robinson repeatedly raped them over the course of nearly two decades.

Robinson vehemently denies raping anybody and has described his ex-housekeepers’ claims as a greedy cash grab. The singer’s attorney, Christopher Frost, strikes the same note in a statement responding to news of the additional police report on Friday.

“It’s not surprising to us that in the context of very public allegations by the four interconnected Jane Does and their shared attorneys, no matter how untrue, news like this might emerge,” says Frost. “It’s one of the risks of being a celebrity, that others will take the same approach.”

Frost continues, “Our focus is on exposing the falsity of the Doe lawsuit, where the Does and their lawyers have taken a hit-and-run approach — making allegations against a beloved 85-year-old cultural icon and subsequently refusing to reveal their identities or unequivocally sit for a deposition, where the truth can actually be determined.”

Attorneys for the four housekeepers declined to comment on the development Friday.

The ex-housekeepers’ civil lawsuit alleges Robinson forced them to have oral and vaginal sex in his bedroom dozens of times between 2007 and 2024. The women are also suing the singer’s wife, Frances Robinson, claiming she failed to stop the alleged abuse despite knowing that her husband had a history of sexual misconduct.

The Motown star and his wife have responded by countersuing the women for defamation and elder abuse. The couple claims that they were “extraordinarily generous” with their housekeepers, but the women were all the while “concocting an extortionate plan to take everything from the Robinsons.”

Meanwhile, police are carrying out a separate criminal investigation into the claims. Frost has said he and the rest of Robinson’s legal team “welcome” the police probe, since they are “confident” it will clear the singer’s name.