Sean “Diddy” Combs on Friday (Might 10) requested a federal choose to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that he and two co-defendants raped a 17-year-old lady in a New York recording studio in 2003, saying it was a “false and hideous declare” that was filed too late beneath the legislation.
The authorized transfer is the newest piece of pushback from the 54-year-old hip-hop mogul and his authorized workforce after he was subjected to a number of related lawsuits and a subsequent legal sex-trafficking investigation.
“Mr. Combs and his firms categorically deny Plaintiff’s decades-old story towards them, which has induced incalculable injury to their reputations and enterprise standing earlier than any proof has been introduced,” says the submitting, which additionally names Combs-owned companies as defendants. “Plaintiff can not allege what day or time of 12 months the alleged incident occurred, however miraculously remembers different salacious particulars, regardless of her alleged incapacitated situation.”
The lawsuit was filed in December and amended in March by the lady who now lives in Canada whose title wasn’t disclosed within the court docket submitting. She mentioned she was in eleventh grade at a highschool in a Detroit suburb in 2003, when Harve Pierre, then the president of Combs’ Dangerous Boy Leisure file label, flew her to New York on a non-public jet and took her to a recording studio, the place she was given medication and alcohol till she was incapable of consenting to intercourse. Then, the lawsuit mentioned, Pierre, Combs and a person she didn’t know took turns raping her.
The lawsuit included images of the lady sitting on Combs’ lap that she mentioned have been taken on the night time in query.
The protection submitting asks that the case be “dismissed now, with prejudice” — which means it can’t be refiled — “to guard the Combs Defendants from additional reputational damage and earlier than extra celebration and judicial sources are squandered.”
At this early stage within the lawsuit, the arguments are procedural reasonably than on the information of the case.
Among the lawsuits filed towards Combs contain decades-old allegations and are among the many greater than 3,700 authorized claims filed beneath New York’s Grownup Survivors Act, which quickly suspended sure authorized deadlines to present sexual assault victims a final alternative to sue over abuse that occurred years and even many years in the past.
The brand new deadlines established by that legislation expired, however the go well with Combs filed the movement towards Friday was introduced beneath a distinct legislation, New York Metropolis’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Safety Legislation. That metropolis legislation additionally permits accusers to file civil complaints involving sexual assault claims after the statute of limitations has run out.
However Combs’ movement argues that go well with was filed too late, as a result of the town legislation is preempted by the state legislation, whose provisions imply the lawsuit wanted to be filed by August of 2021 to be well timed.
“New York state legislation trumps New York Metropolis legislation, with out exception,” the submitting says.
The amended model of the lawsuit filed in March sought to deal with a few of these points, however Combs’ attorneys argue that it didn’t go far sufficient. The choose has dominated the lady might want to reveal her title if the lawsuit strikes ahead after this problem.
The Related Press doesn’t sometimes title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused, except they arrive ahead publicly, as a few of Combs’ accusers have achieved.
Friday’s protection submitting additionally criticizes the go well with for together with “a bolded, legally irrelevant ‘set off warning’ calculated to focus consideration on its salacious and wicked allegations.”
The general public airing of allegations towards Combs started with a November lawsuit by the singer Cassie, his former protege and girlfriend, containing allegations of beatings, rape and different abuse between 2005 and 2018. The go well with, filed by Douglas Wigdor, the identical lawyer who filed the go well with being challenged Friday, was settled the day after it was filed. Combs denied the allegations by means of his lawyer earlier than the settlement.
Extra lawsuits towards Combs have been filed within the following months. Then on March 25, Homeland Safety Investigations served search warrants on his houses in Los Angeles and Miami in a sex-trafficking investigation. His lawyer referred to as it “a gross use of military-level drive.” The investigation is continuous. Combs has not been charged.
Final month, Combs filed a movement to dismiss a go well with filed by Joi Dickerson, who mentioned she was a 19-year-old school scholar when Combs drugged her and sexually assaulted her.
Wigdor didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the brand new submitting. He mentioned in a press release in December that the “depravity of those abhorrent acts has, not surprisingly, scarred our shopper for all times.”
