Law & Order’s Diane Neal Claims Ex Physically & Sexually Abused Her, Hurt Her Pets
Nov. 14 2019, Updated 5:21 p.m. ET
Law and Order: SVU actress Diane Neal is accusing her ex-boyfriend of abuse and a series of other bizarre crimes in a lawsuit, according to a report.
In an interview with Daily Beast, the star recalled the moment she met her JB Benn — often regarded to as the “world’s best magician” — at a star-studded event. Their romance started off innocently, with him asking her out in front of her friends and getting her number. After a few weeks of dating, however, the two were living together in her New Jersey brownstone with her three small dogs.
“It was romantic,” Neal, 43, says, “It was a different kind of romance. It wasn’t like hot-fire passion. But it was sweet and it was simple.”
Neal didn’t realize things would take a wild turn. She alleges Benn, 44, is a dangerous con artist who targeted her and spent their entire relationship physically and sexually abusing her to break down her career.
But Neal now believes Benn’s love for her was more illusion than magic. According to litigation that started last year, she claims Benn was a dangerous con artist who targeted her, isolated her, physically and sexually abused her, and worked to dismantle her career.
As RadarOnline.com has learned, Neal filed a complaint this Wednesday, November 13, in which she claims Benn is a “manipulative and maniacal fraudster,” who allegedly “defrauded her of millions” and “violently inflicted emotional distress" on her via “a campaign of isolation, terror and (physical and sexual) assault, and destroyed her reputation by doing so.”
The actress is suing her former lover for reportedly failing to put her name on the title to a home they bought together in upstate New York.
In her suit, she also says that the magician tried to ruin her career and reputation by sending texts and emails, pretending to be her, to her business contacts and friends. Apart from that, she alleges Benn threatened, abused her, and harmed her pets.
One example she gives is when Benn allegedly slashes her toy poodle’s throat and blamed it on the cat. Then, the cat — who was nursing kitten at the time — disappeared, and the magician allegedly admitted he “‘bashed the cat’s brains in,’” according to Neal.
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In another horrifying accusation, Neal claims her ex-boyfriend sexually abused her while she was asleep. She said that after breaking up with him on March 2018, she woke up to him assaulting her and filming the act on his phone.
Benn denied all of Neal’s claims, claiming she was trying to paint him in a negative light so she can get full ownership of their upstate property.
“The only thing that Neal’s papers prove is that she is so beholden to her anger over our failed relationship that she will swear to anything, without regard to the truth, to paint me in a false light and to try get sic from this Court what she wants…” Benn said, according to Daily Beast.
Still, the magician was arrested on April 1 and accused of stalking Neal in March 2019. The man said he initiated “unwanted contact with Diane Neal via email on 3/15/19 and 3/23/19 causing harm to the mental and emotional health of Diane Neal,” and drove past her house seven times in 15 minutes while she was in the driveway. He also showed up at the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office while she was there, “causing Neal to fear for her life,” according to the charging document.
This Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was forced to pay $200 in fines and fees. Neal, meanwhile, received a two-year order of protection.