Kidnapping and assault convictions[edit]
By the 1990s, James' drug use was public knowledge. He was heavily addicted to cocaine and later admitted to spending about $7,000 per week on drugs for five years straight. On August 2, 1991, James and his girlfriend Tanya Hijazi were arrested on charges of holding 24-year-old Frances Alley hostage for up to six days, tying her up, forcing her to perform sexual acts, and burning her legs and abdomen with the hot end of a crack cocaine pipe during a week-long cocaine binge.
[32][38] James faced a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted on all charges, which included assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated
mayhem,
torture, forcible
oral copulation,
false imprisonment and
kidnapping.
[31]
On November 3, 1992, while out on bail for that incident, James, under the influence of cocaine, assaulted music executive Mary Sauger at the
St. James Club and Hotel in
West Hollywood. Sauger claims she met James and Hijazi for a business meeting, but said the two then kidnapped and beat her over a 20-hour period.
[31]
James was found guilty of both offenses but was cleared of a torture charge that could have put him in prison for the rest of his life. While serving his five-year sentence at
Folsom Prison, James lost a
civil suit to Sauger, who was awarded nearly $2 million in damages in 1994.
[39] James was ordered to pay her about $1 million; the hotel and a private security firm were found liable for nearly $750,000 in damages due to negligence.
[40] James was released from prison on August 21, 1996 after serving more than two years.
[41]
In 1998, James was accused of
sexually assaulting a 26-year-old woman, but the charges were later dropped.
[42]
In 2020, James' estate was sued for $50 million by a woman who accused him of raping her when she was 15 years old at a group home for troubled youths in Buffalo, New York in 1979.
[43][44] later dismissed with prejudice .
