Sean “Diddy” Combs on Friday requested a federal choose to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that he and two co-defendants raped a 17-year-old girl in a New York recording studio in 2003, saying it was a “false and hideous claim” 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 staff after he was subjected to a number of comparable lawsuits and a subsequent prison sex-trafficking investigation.
“Mr. Combs and his companies categorically deny Plaintiff’s decades-old tale against them, which has caused incalculable damage to their reputations and business standing before any evidence has been presented,” says the submitting, which additionally names Combs-owned firms as defendants. “Plaintiff cannot allege what day or time of year the alleged incident occurred, but miraculously remembers other salacious details, despite her alleged incapacitated condition.”
The lawsuit was filed in December and amended in March by the girl who now lives in Canada whose identify 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’ Bad Boy Entertainment 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 did not know took turns raping her.
Kathy Willens / AP
The lawsuit included pictures of the girl sitting on Combs’ lap that she mentioned have been taken on the evening in query.
The protection submitting asks that the case be “dismissed now, with prejudice” — that means it can’t be refiled — “to protect the Combs Defendants from further reputational injury and before more party and judicial resources are squandered.”
One of the plaintiff’s attorneys, Michael J. Willemin, mentioned in an announcement in response to the submitting: “At this point, no one should take anything ‘diddy’ or his lawyers say seriously. Today’s motion is just a desperate attempt by Combs to avoid accountability for Ms. Doe’s allegations of gang rape and sexual assault. It won’t work.”
At this early stage within the lawsuit, the arguments are procedural relatively than on the details of the case.
Some of the lawsuits filed towards Combs contain decades-old allegations and are among the more than 3,700 legal claims filed beneath New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which briefly suspended sure authorized deadlines to present sexual assault victims a final alternative to sue over abuse that occurred years and even a long time in the past.
The new deadlines established by that legislation expired, however the swimsuit Combs filed the movement towards Friday was introduced beneath a special legislation, New York City’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law. That metropolis legislation additionally permits accusers to file civil complaints involving sexual assault claims after the statute of limitations has run out.
But Combs’ movement argues that the swimsuit was filed too late, as a result of 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 law trumps New York City law, without exception,’ the filing says.
The amended version of the lawsuit filed in March sought to address some of these issues, but Combs’ attorneys argue that it didn’t go far enough.
The judge has ruled the woman will need to reveal her name if the lawsuit moves forward after this 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 filing also criticizes the suit for including “a bolded, legally irrelevant ‘set off warning’ calculated to focus consideration on its salacious and wicked allegations.”
The 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 criticism, filed by the identical attorneys who introduced the swimsuit being challenged Friday, was settled the day after it was filed. Combs denied the allegations by his lawyer earlier than the settlement.
More lawsuits towards Combs have been filed within the following months. Then on March 25, Homeland Security Investigations served search warrants on his properties in Los Angeles and Miami in a sex-trafficking investigation. His lawyer known as it “a gross use of military-level force.” The investigation is continuous. Combs has not been charged.
Last month, Combs filed a movement to dismiss a swimsuit filed by Joi Dickerson, who mentioned she was a 19-year-old school pupil when Combs drugged her and sexually assaulted her.
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Associated Press Entertainment Writer Jonathan Landrum contributed to this report.