Jermaine Jackson Ordered to Pay $6.5 Million to Rape Accuser After Default Judgment

Jermaine Jackson will soon be out more than $6.5 million after failing to respond to a sexual assault lawsuit filed against him.

A judge has ordered the former Jackson 5 member, 71, to pay his accuser, Rita Butler Barrett, decades after he allegedly raped her in 1988, according to TMZ.

Butler Barrett filed her lawsuit in December 2023, alleging that the singer “unexpectedly showed up” at her home and “violently” raped her, the outlet reported. The pair knew each other through the music industry, the outlet previously reported.

According to Complex, the accuser’s attorneys were unable to track down Jackson in order to serve him with the lawsuit after attempts were made throughout 2025 until February 2026. Butler Barrett’s team claimed to have made repeated attempts to contact Jackson at the family’s Encino compound and left messages with his ex-wife and daughter.

“Despite these good-faith efforts, we have not received any responses or leads which would assist in identifying the current whereabouts of Jermaine Jackson,” private investigator Maureen O’Connell said at the time.

In 2025, Judge Huey P. Cotton approved a request by Butler Barrett’s legal team to publish legal notices in the Los Angeles Times.

For four weeks between August and September 2025, legal notices ran in the local paper.