The legal war between NBC 'Blacklist' actress Adele Heather Taylor and the estate of her late estranged husband, Star Trek and Transformers screenwriter Roberto Orcí, is officially over before it ever reached a jury. According to court documents obtained by TMZ and filed Wednesday in Los Angeles, attorneys for Orcí's estate submitted a formal notice of settlement, signalling that the entire matter has been resolved. Dismissal of the case is expected by the end of the year once the settlement's remaining conditions are satisfied.
No financial terms were disclosed. The filing notes only that the settlement is "conditional" and that the dismissal is pending fulfilment of those conditions — standard language that protects both sides from publishing a number and then walking back a clause.
How the case started
The dispute predates Orcí's February 2025 death. In 2024, Taylor countersued Orcí for at least $17 million after he had filed a domestic-violence suit against her. Her countersuit reframed the allegations: she alleged that she, not Orcí, had been the victim throughout the relationship, and accused the screenwriter of sexual assault, physical abuse, violent threats and sustained emotional abuse.
Her claims were detailed. Taylor alleged Orcí had slapped her repeatedly inside a New York City taxi, sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions, and on one occasion threw her belongings — along with her blind-and-deaf dog, Nigel — out of a moving vehicle during a confrontation.
Orcí's camp denied the allegations in full, calling Taylor's account "fabricated," and asserted that Taylor was in fact the aggressor while Orcí struggled with alcoholism. His death a few months later did not end the case; the estate inherited the litigation posture, and has now chosen to settle rather than proceed to discovery.
Why settle, and why now
Settlements after a party's death tend to be pragmatic rather than vindicating. Continuing to trial would require the estate to defend an already deceased client against claims he could no longer rebut personally, a posture that rarely benefits either side. Estate attorneys also face a narrow duty to preserve assets for beneficiaries; multi-year litigation over allegations the defendant cannot testify to is almost always the more expensive route.
Taylor, meanwhile, gets closure — and, presumably, a payment — without the spectacle of a public trial that would have required her to re-litigate each allegation while a grieving family sat in the front row.
The Hollywood context
Orcí, who died in February 2025, was one of the most commercially successful screenwriters of his generation. He co-wrote the 2009 Star Trek reboot and its sequel, the first two Transformers films, and created the reboot of Hawaii Five-0. At the time of the counter-suit, he was attached to several ongoing television projects, all of which were paused or reassigned after his death.
Taylor, who returned to NBC's Blacklist franchise in 2025, had kept a deliberately low media profile throughout the litigation, with her team declining most press requests. She has not commented on the settlement.
Our take
Neither side wins a settlement like this — they just both stop losing. The estate avoids a trial that would have aired every ugly allegation without Orcí to defend himself; Taylor avoids a discovery phase that would have cross-examined every detail of her counter-narrative. The terms will probably never become public, which is exactly what both sides' lawyers negotiated for.
