Sean “Diddy” Combs on Friday (May 10) asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit alleging he and two co-defendants raped a 17-year-old girl in a New York recording studio in 2003, calling it a “false and despicable claim.” which was filed too late under the Act.
The legal move is the latest pushback from the 54-year-old hip-hop mogul and his legal team after he faced several similar lawsuits and a subsequent criminal investigation into sex trafficking.
“Mr. Combs and his companies vehemently deny Plaintiff's decades-long story against them, which has caused incalculable damage to their reputations and business standing before any evidence has been presented,” reads the filing, which also names companies owned by Combs as defendants. “Plaintiff cannot claim what day or time of year the alleged incident occurred, but she miraculously remembers other salacious details, despite her alleged incapacitated state.”
The suit was filed in December and amended in March by the woman, who now lives in Canada and whose name was not disclosed in court. He said he was in the 11th grade at a high school in a Detroit suburb in 2003 when Harvey Pierre, then president of Combs' record label Bad Boy Entertainment, flew her to New York on a private jet and took her to a recording studio, where she was drugged and drugged until she was unable to consent to sex. Then, the lawsuit said, Pierre, Combs and a man she didn't know took turns raping her.
The lawsuit included photos of the woman sitting on Combs' lap, which she said were taken on the night in question.
The defense filing asks that the case be “dismissed now, with prejudice” — meaning it cannot be refiled — “to protect the Combs defendants from further reputational injury and before more party and judicial resources are wasted.”
At this early stage of the litigation, the arguments are procedural and not factual.
Some of the lawsuits filed against Combs involve decades-old allegations and are among more than 3,700 legal claims filed under New York's Adult Survivors Act, which temporarily suspended certain legal deadlines to give sexual assault victims one last chance to sue for abuse that happened years or even decades ago.
The new deadlines set by that law have passed, but the lawsuit Combs filed against Friday was filed under a different law, New York's Motivated Violence Victim Protection Act. This city law also allows accusers to file civil complaints involving sexual assault claims after the statute of limitations has expired.
But Combs' motion argues that the lawsuit was filed too late because the city law is preempted by state law, the provisions of which mean the lawsuit had to be filed by August 2021 to be timely.
“New York State law supersedes New York City law, without exception,” the filing states.
The amended version of the lawsuit filed in March tried to address some of those issues, but Combs' lawyers say it didn't go far enough. The judge ruled that the woman will have to reveal her name if the lawsuit goes forward after that challenge.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as some of Combs' accusers have done.
Friday's defense brief also criticizes the lawsuit for including “a bold, legally irrelevant 'trigger warning' calculated to focus attention on her frivolous and damaging allegations.”
The public airing of allegations against Combs began with a lawsuit filed in November by singer Cassie, his former protégé and friend, alleging beatings, rape and other abuse between 2005 and 2018. The lawsuit, filed by Douglas Wigdor, the same attorney who filed the lawsuit Friday, settled the day after she filed it. Combs denied the allegations through his attorney before the settlement.
More lawsuits were filed against Combs in the following months. Then on March 25, Homeland Security Investigations served search warrants at his homes in Los Angeles and Miami as part of a sex-trafficking investigation. His lawyer called it “an egregious use of force on a military scale.” The investigation continues. Combs has not been charged.
Last month, Combs filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Joi Dickerson, who said she was a 19-year-old college student when Combs drugged and sexually assaulted her.
Wigdor did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new filing. He said in a statement in December that “the humiliation of these heinous acts has, not surprisingly, scarred our client for life.”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/legal/sean-diddy-combs-dismiss-claim-raped-17-year-old-girl-1235680896/