Sean “Diddy” Combs asks choose to dismiss sexual assault lawsuit

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 lady in a New York recording studio in 2003, saying it was a “false and hideous declare” that was filed too late below the regulation.

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 comparable lawsuits and a subsequent legal sex-trafficking investigation.

“Mr. Combs and his corporations categorically deny Plaintiff’s decades-old story towards them, which has brought about incalculable injury to their reputations and enterprise standing earlier than any proof has been offered,” 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 identify wasn’t disclosed within the courtroom submitting. She stated 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 document 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 stated, Pierre, Combs and a person she did not know took turns raping her.

The lawsuit included images of the lady sitting on Combs’ lap that she stated 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 guard the Combs Defendants from additional reputational damage and earlier than extra social gathering and judicial sources are squandered.”

One of many plaintiff’s attorneys, Michael J. Willemin, stated in an announcement in response to the submitting: “At this level, nobody ought to take something ‘diddy’ or his legal professionals say severely. At present’s movement is only a determined try by Combs to keep away from accountability for Ms. Doe’s allegations of gang rape and sexual assault. It will not work.”

At this early stage within the lawsuit, the arguments are procedural reasonably than on the info of the case.

A few of the lawsuits filed towards Combs contain decades-old allegations and are among the many greater than 3,700 authorized claims filed below New York’s Grownup Survivors Act, which briefly suspended sure authorized deadlines to offer 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 regulation expired, however the go well with Combs filed the movement towards Friday was introduced below a unique regulation, New York Metropolis’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Safety Regulation. That metropolis regulation additionally permits accusers to file civil complaints involving sexual assault claims after the statute of limitations has run out.

However Combs’ movement argues that the go well with was filed too late, as a result of the town regulation is preempted by the state regulation, whose provisions imply the lawsuit wanted to be filed by August of 2021 to be well timed.

“New York state regulation trumps New York Metropolis regulation, 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 did not go far sufficient.

The choose has dominated the lady might want to reveal her identify if the lawsuit strikes ahead after this problem.

The Related Press doesn’t usually identify individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused, until 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 criticism, filed by the identical attorneys who introduced the go well with being challenged Friday, was settled the day after it was filed. Combs denied the allegations by 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 constant. Combs has not been charged.

Final month, Combs filed a movement to dismiss a go well with filed by Joi Dickerson, who stated she was a 19-year-old faculty pupil when Combs drugged her and sexually assaulted her.

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Related Press Leisure Author Jonathan Landrum contributed to this report.