Claire previously told The Times in September that the “mere sending” of a list of fact-checking questions “caused further trauma and extreme physical and psychological harm to survivors of sexual assault. This is unacceptable.”
He said the Times had been “fooled by a fabricated story” and that reporting stories about abuse “is not evidence or corroboration.”
Griffin, editor of Dial Press, a Penguin Random House publication, told the Times: “The book’s publisher is not the researcher. This is Amy’s story. We believe that she and all of the authors are telling their memories truthfully.”
Jane Doe’s lawsuit alleges that she was wearing a borrowed dress from Griffin when she was assaulted at an eighth-grade dance, and that when she returned it, it had stains from the attack, according to the Times and the Associated Press.
In The Tell, Griffin wrote that she lent a classmate (also known as Claudia) a dress for a cotillion dance. After starting MDMA therapy, Griffin said, he felt an urge to reconnect with Claudia, and when they met, he asked her if Claudia had also been abused by Griffin, the teacher who was accused of assault, to which Claudia replied, “No.”
Claire told the New York Times that the classmate she interviewed was not the person named Claudia in the book.
