Dr. Dre’s former marriage therapist refused a restraining order

Dr. Dre has won his ongoing legal battle against a celebrity psychiatrist who filed a lawsuit last month accusing the rapper of harassment.

Dre previously obtained a temporary restraining order after his former marriage therapist, Dr. Charles Sophy, filed a $10 million lawsuit alleging that his former client subjected him to a “systematic and vicious campaign of harassment.”

That temporary order was lifted on Tuesday after a judge ruled that Sophie failed to prove that Dre, born Andre Young, posed a threat to his physical safety, denying a psychiatrist’s request for a permanent restraining order.

“The court finds that the party seeking the protective order has not met its burden of proof and, accordingly, the request is denied,” Los Angeles County District Judge Melanie Ochoa said Tuesday afternoon, according to a written order obtained by The Times.

Sophie’s professional relationship with Young dates back to 2018, the psychiatrist said in his Oct. 9 lawsuit, when he began offering marriage counseling to the artist “Still DRE” and his ex-wife Nicole Young. After “working diligently, independently and honestly to help Young and his ex-wife resolve their disputes”, Sophie ceased contact with the couple in 2021 when their divorce was finalised.

“Fourteen months later and suddenly, without warning, Young began a sustained campaign of abusive messages, late-night reminders that he would not ‘forget’ Dr. Sophie, and homophobic slurs,” Sophie’s lawsuit says, adding that Young took out his disappointment as a result of mediation with a psychiatrist.

The Oct. 9 filing also alleged that Young once sent people to Sophie’s address to intimidate him — a charge Young denied at Tuesday’s hearing, which he attended via Zoom.

In a statement, Young called Sophie’s lawsuit and subsequent request for a restraining order elements of a “misguided attempt to undermine” his reputation after he filed a complaint against Sophie with the California Medical Board last May, according to a statement published Monday by The Times.

According to him, the rapper filed the complaint after allegedly discovering that Sophie was “trying to damage my relationship with my son, including urging him to release my financial information to the media as part of his efforts to pressure me into settling the divorce. unfair conditions”.

Although Young admitted to sending some of the text messages that Sophie included in her harassment lawsuit on October 9, he said they “were sent in the context of my discovery of his abuse of office and my unsuccessful attempts to get Sophie to explain me, why he resorted to these inappropriate actions. .”

In a statement on Monday, Young’s attorney, Howard E. King, cited a Sept. 30 police report in which Sophie told law enforcement he was “concerned for his safety ‘due to recent events involving P. Diddy due to the violent behavior of Young’s friends.’ King argued that the evidence of Sophie’s emotional distress “consists entirely of reference to the racist caricature that portrays black men like the Youngs as inherently violent.”

This was stated by Sophie’s lawyer Christopher Frost in a statement for Rolling Stone that Young’s statement “hurled ugly and unfair allegations of racism at my client.”

“We have always been aware that we are up against a celebrity in this case, and while it would be easy to make these accusations and disingenuous statements and amplify them, it does not change the fact that Dr. Sophie filed suit solely because of Mr. Young’s consistent pattern of behavior.” Frost said, adding that Sophie remains committed to his lawsuit despite Tuesday’s decision.

The first hearing in the harassment case is scheduled for April 4.