Sean “Diddy” Combs on Friday (Could 10) requested a federal decide to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that he and two co-defendants raped a 17-year-old woman 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 crew after he was subjected to a number of comparable lawsuits and a subsequent prison sex-trafficking investigation.
“Mr. Combs and his firms categorically deny Plaintiff’s decades-old story in opposition to them, which has precipitated incalculable harm to their reputations and enterprise standing earlier than any proof has been introduced,” says the submitting, which additionally names Combs-owned firms 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 courtroom 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’ Unhealthy Boy Leisure file label, flew her to New York on a personal jet and took her to a recording studio, the place she was given medicine 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 pictures of the lady sitting on Combs’ lap that she mentioned had been taken on the night time in query.
The protection submitting asks that the case be “dismissed now, with prejudice” — that means it can’t be refiled — “to guard the Combs Defendants from additional reputational damage and earlier than extra celebration and judicial assets are squandered.”
At this early stage within the lawsuit, the arguments are procedural quite than on the details of the case.
Among the lawsuits filed in opposition to 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 swimsuit Combs filed the movement in opposition to Friday was introduced beneath a special 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 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 legislation trumps New York Metropolis legislation, with out exception,” the submitting says.
The amended model of the lawsuit filed in March sought to handle a few of these points, however Combs’ attorneys argue that it didn’t go far sufficient. The decide has dominated the lady might want to reveal her title if the lawsuit strikes ahead after this problem.
The Related Press doesn’t usually title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused, until they arrive ahead publicly, as a few of Combs’ accusers have performed.
Friday’s protection submitting additionally criticizes the swimsuit 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 in opposition to 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 swimsuit, filed by Douglas Wigdor, the identical legal professional who filed the swimsuit being challenged Friday, was settled the day after it was filed. Combs denied the allegations by his lawyer earlier than the settlement.
Extra lawsuits in opposition to Combs had been filed within the following months. Then on March 25, Homeland Safety Investigations served search warrants on his properties in Los Angeles and Miami in a sex-trafficking investigation. His lawyer referred to as it “a gross use of military-level power.” The investigation is constant. Combs has not been charged.
Final month, Combs filed a movement to dismiss a swimsuit filed by Joi Dickerson, who mentioned she was a 19-year-old faculty pupil 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.”
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