Catherine Rusoff
Sean “Diddy” Combs on Friday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that he and two co-defendants raped a 17-year-old girl in a New York recording studio in 2003saying it was a “false and heinous allegation” that was filed too late according to the law.
The legal move is the latest pushback from the 54-year-old hip-hop mogul and his legal team, after he was subjected to several similar lawsuits and a subsequent criminal sex trafficking investigation.
“Mr. Combs and his companies categorically deny Plaintiff’s decades-long history against them, which caused incalculable damage to their reputations and business standing before any evidence was presented,” says the lawsuit, which also names companies owned by of 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 supposed incapacitated condition.”
The lawsuit was filed in December and amended in March by the woman who now lives in Canada and whose name was not released in the court filing. She said she was in the 11th grade at a high school in a Detroit suburb in 2003 when Harve Pierre, then president of Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment record label, flew her to New York on a private jet and took her to a recording studio. . , where she was administered drugs and alcohol until she became incapable of consenting to sexual intercourse. Then, the lawsuit said, Pierre, Combs and a man she didn’t know took turns raping her.
Kathy Willens/AP
The suit included photos of the woman sitting on Combs’ lap that she said were taken the night in question.
The defense asks that the case be “dismissed now with prejudice” – meaning it cannot be dismissed again – “to protect the Combs Defendants from further reputational damage and before further judicial and partisan resources are wasted.”
One of the plaintiff’s attorneys, Michael J. Willemin, said in a statement in response to the request: “At this point, no one should take anything from ‘diddy’ or his lawyers seriously. Today’s motion is just a desperate attempt by Combs of avoiding accountability for Ms. Doe’s allegations of gang rape and sexual assault It won’t work.
At this early stage of the process, arguments are procedural and not based on the facts of the case.
Some of the lawsuits filed against Combs involve decades-old allegations and are among more than 3,700 lawsuits Filed under New York Adult Survivors Actwhich temporarily suspended certain legal deadlines to give victims of sexual violence one last opportunity to sue for abuse that occurred years or even decades ago.
The new deadlines set by that law have expired, but the lawsuit Combs filed the motion against Friday was filed under a different law, the New York City Gender-Motivated Violence Victims Protection Act. This city law also allows accusers to file civil complaints involving allegations of sexual assault after the statute of limitations has passed.
But Combs’ motion argues the lawsuit was filed too late because the city law was preempted by state law, provisions of which mean the lawsuit needed to be filed by August 2021 to be timely.
“New York State law trumps New York City law, without exception,” the lawsuit says.
The amended version of the lawsuit filed in March sought to resolve some of those issues, but Combs’ lawyers argue it didn’t go far enough.
The judge ruled that the woman will need to reveal her name if the case moves forward after the challenge.
The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as some of Combs’ accusers have done.
Friday’s defense filing also criticizes the lawsuit for including “a bold and legally irrelevant ‘trigger warning’ calculated to draw attention to its salacious and depraved allegations.”
The public disclosure of the accusations against Combs began with a lawsuit filed in November by singer Cassie, his former protégé and girlfriend, containing allegations of beatings, rape and other abuse between 2005 and 2018. The complaint, filed by the same lawyers who filed the lawsuit, being contested on Friday, was resolved the day after it was filed. Combs denied the allegations through his attorney before the settlement.
More lawsuits against Combs were filed in the following months. Then, on March 25, Homeland Security Investigations served search warrants at his homes in Los Angeles and Miami in a sex trafficking investigation. His lawyer called it “a gross military-level use of force.” The investigation continues. Combs was not 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.
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Associated Press Entertainment Writer Jonathan Landrum contributed to this report.
