$115 Million Verdict Against a Former Stepfather Who Sexually Abused a Girl From Age 6 Into Her Twenties and Was Never Charged

A.Z. was six years old in 1991 when Joseph Ruffalo, her mother's husband, began sexually abusing her. Ruffalo had managed musicians and produced films in the 1980s, including Purple Rain. He married her mother in 1993; the family lived in Los Angeles from 1992 to 1998. According to A.Z.'s testimony and her lawsuit, the abuse continued for 16 years, through her childhood and into her twenties, ending in 2007 when she was 22 and finally told her mother what had been happening. Her mother left Ruffalo that year and later divorced him.

The case drew press attention because of the family's name, but the trial itself was about a child and the adults around her. She alleged that her mother and grandmother sexualized her for Ruffalo's benefit, abused her themselves, and pressured her to keep quiet to protect the family's name. She reported Ruffalo to three police agencies in the United States and Britain. None brought charges, which prosecutors attributed to a lack of corroborating evidence. Years later she saw Ruffalo's LinkedIn profile announcing that he was volunteering at a children's hospital, and she sued.

The complaint was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in September 2020 against Ruffalo, her mother and her grandmother, with claims against the family's company that she later dropped. The court dismissed the grandmother. Her mother's lawyers argued that she had not known about the abuse until her daughter disclosed it at 22, and that Ruffalo alone was the cause of any injury; A.Z. resolved her negligence and emotional distress claims against her mother before trial on confidential terms. That left Ruffalo, then 85, as the only defendant in front of the jury.

Gary A. Dordick of Dordick Law Corporation tried the case for A.Z. in Department 57. Ruffalo was represented by Donna Rotunno, who had defended Harvey Weinstein, and Jilbert Tahmazian. His defense disputed liability, the nature of the claims, and the damages. Her younger sister testified under Dordick's questioning that Ruffalo had molested her as well, when she was four. A.Z. told Ruffalo from the witness stand that if she had had the strength she would have punched him in the face for what he did to her sister.

On September 16, 2025, a jury of six men and six women deliberated two hours and forty minutes and unanimously found Ruffalo liable for sexual battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It awarded $85 million in compensatory damages. In the punitive phase, Tahmazian argued that punishment should reflect ability to pay: Ruffalo testified that he had brought no financial records to court, carried heavy credit card debt, had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending the case, had borrowed from friends and had moved in with someone from his church. Dordick answered that being financially irresponsible is not a defense. The jury added $30 million in punitive damages, for a total of $115 million.

Rotunno said afterward that the verdict did not match the facts and called for changes in laws that let decades-old claims go to trial. A.Z. thanked the jury and said the verdict was a step toward accountability and child protection where the criminal system had failed. She has said she will put any money collected toward her foundation's work protecting children. A year on, no appeal or post-trial ruling has surfaced in public reporting, and Ruffalo's own testimony leaves real doubt about how much of the award can ever be collected.