A U.S. district judge on Monday dismissed Annie Altman’s lawsuit accusing her brother, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, of childhood sexual abuse after she refused a medical examination.
Judge Zachary Bluestone threw out both siblings’ claims in the nearly two-year fight. Sam Altman remains free to refile his own claim under the court order.
The ruling ends the active case for now and underscores a basic courtroom rule: parties who bring grave accusations still must meet procedural demands. The Daily Caller reported the dismissal and the surrounding filings that framed the dispute from the start.
Annie Altman filed the suit with allegations dated Jan. 6, 2025. The complaint claimed the abuse began around 1997, when she was three years old and Sam Altman was twelve.
The suit text described forced contact and oral penetration and said the conduct continued for years. It claimed acts occurred several times per week between 1997 and 1999 and alleged the abuse lasted until around 2006, including periods after Sam Altman reached adulthood.
The complaint used the name Ann Altman in the quoted passage and leveled claims of rape, sexual assault, molestation, sodomy, and battery as part of its case theory. Those remain allegations. The court did not adjudicate them as proven facts before the dismissal.
One passage from the lawsuit stated the core charge in stark terms.
"In approximately 1997, Plaintiff, Ann Altman, was three years old... Beginning at or about that time, Defendant, Sam Altman, forced Plaintiff to touch his penis and perform oral penetration on him. Sam Altman was twelve years old at the time,"
Sam Altman posted a family statement on X the next day, Jan. 7, 2025. He introduced it with a short note that his sister had sued him and that the message came from his mother, brothers, and him.
The family rejected the accusations outright and pointed to mental health struggles and repeated money demands. The statement also referenced a history of harmful accusations against family members.
Key lines from that statement read:
"Our family loves Annie and is very concerned about her well-being. Caring for a family member who faces mental health challenges is incredibly difficult,"
The same statement added a flat denial.
"All of these claims are utterly untrue."
Altman’s attorneys later filed a counterclaim dated June 24. They sought one dollar in damages and asked the court to rule the allegations false. Their filing stated that Sam Altman has never sexually abused his sister.
Counsel also cast the suit as a financial pressure campaign. In the quoted argument, they wrote that the case was one more attempt to use false accusations of sexual abuse to extort the family into greater financial support.
Hailyn Chen of Munger, Tolles & Olson and Jonathan Kravis of Liu Shur Kravis represent Sam Altman. Neither responded to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment on the dismissal.
Bluestone, a Trump appointee, dismissed the lawsuit after Annie Altman refused a medical examination. The court order tossed both sides’ claims. It left Sam Altman free to refile his claim if he chooses.
The public record described in the reporting does not detail the exact scope of the ordered exam, who first sought it, or the full legal basis beyond the refusal itself. Investigators and the parties will still need to resolve any remaining procedural fights if new filings appear.
No public results have been released about the substance of any medical findings, because the examination did not go forward. The dismissal turned on process, not a trial verdict on the childhood claims.
Annie Altman’s current counsel, Laura Politi, voiced disappointment and shifted focus to a deposition issue. She said the team wants the current disposition of Annie’s deposition vacated so the material can be released as Annie wishes.
Politi told the Daily Caller News Foundation:
"We are disappointed in the ruling, and we are focused on vacating the current disposition of Annie’s deposition so that it may be released as per her wishes,"
Former counsel Santos Perez said he could no longer speak for the case but still backed Annie.
"I am no longer authorized to comment on this case but I continue to believe in Annie,"
Those statements leave open a narrow post-dismissal fight over deposition access. They do not restore the thrown-out claims.
The case sat in U.S. District Court. The reporting identifies the judge and the docket trail but does not name a specific courthouse city in the body text. The order’s practical effect is clear enough: the active suit is out, and only Sam Altman’s side holds an explicit path to refile.
Sam Altman sought a symbolic one-dollar damages figure paired with a judicial finding that the allegations were false. That request fell with the mutual dismissal. He can try again if he refiles.
Annie Altman’s team has not publicly confirmed a new complaint. Counsel instead highlighted the deposition disposition. Courts often treat medical exams and deposition fights as gatekeeping tools when parties put physical or mental condition at issue. Refusal can end a case before a jury ever hears the underlying story.
The timeline now stretches from the alleged 1997 start date, through the Jan. 6, 2025 filing, the Jan. 7 family statement, the June 24 counterclaim, and Monday’s dismissal reported on Oct. 20, 2026. That arc covers childhood claims, adult litigation, and a process failure that stopped both sides cold.
High-profile defendants still receive the same procedural shield as anyone else. Accusers must comply with discovery and examination orders or risk exactly this outcome. The reverse also holds: a defendant who wants a formal declaration that charges are false may need to keep litigating after a clean dismissal.
OpenAI’s chief executive faced public allegations that the family called utterly untrue and tied to mental health and money demands. The court never tried those competing narratives. It enforced a medical-exam condition and closed the file.
Reuters had earlier carried the family’s denial, a point noted in the Daily Caller account. The latest development is the judicial act itself, not a new factual finding on events from the late 1990s and 2000s.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed any criminal charges tied to the civil claims described here. The record in this package is civil, driven by pleadings, a counterclaim for one dollar, and a dismissal order after noncompliance.
If Sam Altman refiles, the court will again confront the truth-or-falsity question he wanted resolved. If Annie Altman’s lawyers succeed in reopening deposition access, more material could reach the public even without an active damages case.
Judges will need to determine how far any renewed claim may go and whether prior discovery fights limit the next round. The parties will also need to determine whether settlement talks replace another cycle of filings.
For now the operative fact is simpler. Bluestone dismissed the lawsuit. Both claims are out. One side may return. The other is concentrating on a deposition order rather than a restored complaint.
Serious accusations demand serious process. When a plaintiff refuses a medical examination ordered in discovery, a federal judge can and will end the case, no matter how famous the surname or how heated the family rift.
