New twist in Kesha, Dr Luke legal battle

The ongoing legal battle between singer Kesha and her producer Dr Luke took a surprising turn.

Just one week after the singer filed documents accusing her producer of mental, physical and sexual abuse, Luke's legal team has successfully petitioned a judge to unseal documents from an unrelated 2011 case in which Kesha denies any such abuse.

Luke has vehemently denied the accusations ever since they were filed Oct 14, but Kesha's lawyer Mark Geragos believes this request to unseal documents is just Luke making good on the threats they say the producer made to keep Kesha silent.

"Dr Luke's latest legal maneuver comes as no surprise," Geragos told people.com.

"As detailed in our complaint, Dr Luke walked Kesha down the beach and threatened to destroy Kesha's life and the lives of her family if she didn't cover up his sexual assaults in a 2011 deposition," says Geragos.

In the documents, Kesha is quoted as affirming that she and Luke had shared a bed at least once, but she explicitly denies that they ever had an "intimate relationship" or that he ever gave her a "roofie(date rape drug)".

Kesha's mother, Pebe Sebert is also quoted as denying that anyone, including her daughter, ever informed her that Luke has "slipped Kesha a date rape drug" or that "they had had a sexual relationship of any kind."

Geragos suggests that Kesha's 2011 denials were due to her close relationship with the producer with whom she signed up when she was an 18-year-old.

"Unfortunately, protecting abusers out of fear happens all too often with battered women, but after being driven to the brink of death and into rehab, she's no longer going to allow herself to wither away at the hands of her abuser as he tries to blame the victim," says Geragos.