Sean “Diddy” Combs asks judge to dismiss “false” allegations that he and others raped 17-year-old girl

Sean “Diddy” Combs asked a federal judge Friday to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that he and two co-defendants raped a 17 year old girl at a New York recording studio in 2003, claiming it was a “false and hideous claim” filed too late under the law.

The legal ruling is the latest response from the 54-year-old hip-hop mogul and his legal team after he was subjected to several similar lawsuits and a subsequent criminal prosecution. sex trafficking investigation.

“Mr. Combs and his companies categorically deny Plaintiff’s decades-old history against them, which caused incalculable damage to their reputation and business standing before any evidence was presented,” the filing states , which also names companies owned by Combs as defendants “Plaintiff cannot point to the day or time of year the alleged incident occurred, but miraculously remembers other salacious details, despite. his alleged state of incapacity.”

The suit was filed in December and amended in March by the woman now living in Canada whose name was not disclosed in the court filing. She said she was in the 11th grade at a suburban Detroit high school in 2003 when Harve Pierre, then president of Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment label, took her to New York on a private jet and took her taken to a recording studio. , where she was given drugs and alcohol until she was unable to consent to sex. Then, according to the lawsuit, Pierre, Combs and a man she did not know took turns raping her.

The lawsuit included photographs of the woman sitting on Combs’ lap that 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 harm to their reputations and before further judicial and judicial resources are not wasted.

One of the plaintiff’s attorneys, Michael J. Willemin, said in a statement responding to the filing: “At this point, no one should take seriously what ‘diddy’ or his attorneys say.” Today’s motion is just a desperate attempt by Combs to avoid answering for Ms. Doe’s allegations of gang rape and sexual assault. This won’t work.

At this early stage of the trial, the arguments are more about procedure than the facts of the case.

Some of the lawsuits filed against Combs involve allegations that are decades old and are among the most recent. more than 3,700 legal claims filed under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which temporarily suspends certain legal deadlines to give sexual assault victims a final opportunity to sue for abuse that occurred years or even decades ago.

The new deadlines under that law have expired, but the complaint Combs filed Friday was filed under a different law, the New York City Gender-Based Violence Protection Act. This city law also allows accusers to file civil complaints regarding sexual assault allegations after the statute of limitations has expired.

But Combs’ motion argues that the complaint was filed too late because city law is preempted by state law, whose provisions mean the complaint had to be filed by August 2021 to be timely .

“The law of the State of New York prevails over the law of the City of New York, without exception,” the filing states.

The amended version of the lawsuit filed in March sought 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 trial continues after this challenge.

The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they were 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 bold and legally irrelevant ‘trigger warning,’ intended to draw attention to his salacious and depraved allegations.”

The public airing of the allegations against Combs began with a November lawsuit filed by singer Cassie, his former protégé and girlfriend, containing allegations of beatings, rapes and other abuses between 2005 and 2018. The complaint, filed by the same attorneys who filed the contested lawsuit on Friday, was settled 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 search warrants served on his homes in Los Angeles and Miami as part of a sex trafficking investigation. His lawyer called it a “blatant use of force at the military level.” The investigation continues. The combs were not charged.

Last month, Combs filed a motion to dismiss a complaint filed by Joi Dickerson, who said she was a 19-year-old student when Combs drugged and sexually assaulted her.

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Associated Press Entertainment Writer Jonathan Landrum contributed to this report.