Bob Dylan Accuser Drops Case Amid Allegation She Destroyed Evidence

A lawsuit accusing Bob Dylan of sexual abuse has been dropped for good.

The plaintiff requested a judge dismiss the case "with prejudice" in a hearing Thursday, July 28, meaning the case cannot be refiled.

Dylan's team, which had previously characterized the accusations as "malicious" and "a brazen shakedown," argued that the plaintiff had permanently deleted crucial messages related to her case.

The merits of the original suit were dubious early on. The plaintiff alleged that Dylan repeatedly abused her over a period of weeks in New York City in the spring of 1965. Dylan, however, was seldom in New York during that timeframe, having embarked on well-documented tours on the west coast and in the U.K. The singer was even hospitalized in London in May of that year with an illness.

Dylan's friends were quick to defend him from the accusations publicly and his lawyers singled out the plaintiff's attorney for filing the case "in bad faith." One attorney suggested the motive for the lawsuit was to extract a quick settlement from Dylan to spare the singer any bad press.

"This case is over. It is outrageous that it was ever brought in the first place," one of Dylan's lawyers said in a statement to Billboard. "We are pleased that the plaintiff has dropped this lawyer-driven sham and that the case has been dismissed with prejudice."

Despite the mountain of documents that seemed to vindicate Dylan, his accuser's legal team continued moving the case forward until this July when a judge warned them of serious consequences if they did not turn over relevant emails and text messages requested for the case.

The accuser fired her lawyers a few days later. Dylan's team said the move was "designed to evade court-ordered document production obligations and the threat of sanctions."