Content warning: This article is about sexual assault
From the time Erick Morillo was arrested in August on suspicion of sexual battery to months after his subsequent death, it was rumored that the defendant in the case was Kristen Knight. The Miami DJ and producer has now publicly confirmed her involvement, sharing her account of the December 2019 incident and describing the aftermath.
Speaking with Annabel Ross for Mixmag, Knight recalled going to Morillo’s house with a new friend on Friday, December 6th after playing alongside him at a private party in Miami. She said that Morillo spoke to her boyfriend, Miami artist Roger Sanchez, on the phone, promising to get her home safe. When they arrived at his home, though, he began to act inappropriately.
Knight alleged that Morillo grabbed her head and tried to kiss her, prompting her to gather her things and leave. Morillo then followed her outside naked and crying, she said, and she returned inside to keep him company out of pity. “One thing that I’ve noticed is that a lot of people who love Erick, they have this kind of sympathy for him,” she said. “They feel bad for him, like his life was so rough, or you know, he did drugs and he has problems. It was that same sympathy that made me a victim of his.”
Morillo allegedly promised to put shorts on and behave better, so Knight returned inside to DJ with him for a while. While taking a break to smoke a cigarette, she began to feel extremely sleepy and went inside to lay down in the first bed she could find. She said she woke up naked to Morillo walking around the room, also naked. She left his house, ordered an Uber home, and then called Sanchez before calling the police.
“I thought maybe I can just leave here now and pretend like it never happened, but that wasn’t an option for me,” Knight said. “I thought about being that woman who came forward ten, twenty years from now and had my credibility questioned. That wasn’t an option for me.
“And then I thought about everything that would happen when I did call the police,” she continued. “I knew that it would be daunting. And then I thought about my daughter, if it was her in my position, you know. So once you call the cops, everything you do is under investigation and your body becomes a crime scene. And that’s how the rest of that day went.”
It took eight months for the rape kit to come back positive, leading Erick Morillo to turn himself into Miami authorities on August 6th. He died on September 1st of acute ketamine toxicity resulting from what the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner ruled an accidental overdose – three days before he was set to appear in court.
Outcry over tributes posted in memory of the “I Like To Move It” producer led at least 10 other people to share allegations of sexual misconduct involving him. At the same time, however, many social media commentators went to volatile lengths to defend the late artist.
Knight touched on the ensuing backlash of the case and Morillo’s death, confessing that online harassment and death threats made her contemplate suicide. She remained confident in her decision nonetheless, arguing that more women should come forward about their abuse. “I did what I thought I was supposed to do,” she said.
Selector encourages anyone with information regarding incidents of sexual misconduct in the electronic music industry to email info@Selector.news with guaranteed confidentiality.
