Billionaire Jay-Z is a bully who has “shrilly maintained an entitlement to different rules and faster procedures” against a Jane Doe who claims the ‘Picasso, Baby’ rapper, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and an unnamed female celebrity raped her in 2000 when she was 13-years-old, says the accuser’s lawyer in the latest war of words between the parties in the federal docket.
In what is starting to sound a lot like the MCU of lawsuits where each side is perpetually teasing or declaring what is coming next, Tony Buzbee’s letter Friday to Judge Analisa Torrie caps the latest phase of an action where Combs has become almost a sideshow to the main action of the Houston-based plaintiff’s lawyer, the rapper born Shawn Carter and Jay-Z’s long time legal sideman Alex Spiro throwing down on each other daily with pledges to be very street and very much a Marine.
“In each instance, the goal has been to blur the facts and rush a decision,” asserts Buzbee of the tactics employed by the hip-hop legend and the Quinn Emanuel partner in the three-page correspondence today to New York-based Judge Torres. “But there is aggressive advocacy and then there is bad faith. Mr. Carter’s latest tactics, much like his open threat to refer Plaintiff’s attorneys for disciplinary action, cross that line.” Mocking Jay-Z and the acerbic Spiro for being “histrionic,” Buzbee, who is working on most of the dozens of civil sexual assault cases against the incarcerated Combs, says “outside of the courtroom, Mr. Carter has employed tactics of intimidation and harassment even more extreme, tortious, and quite possibly illegal.”
Going on in the letter to claim the ’99 Problems’ defendant “twists Plaintiff’s words” over portions of her recollection on the post-MTV VMAs night 24 years ago in an NBC News interview last week, Buzbee adds: “Carter’s threat of an ‘immediate’ sanctions motion on the first whisper of factual uncertainty is just one more instance of bullying, intended to have a chilling effect on Plaintiff, Plaintif’s counsel, and any potential plaintiffs watching these proceedings.”
After his September 16 arrest and not-guilty plea, Combs sits in Brooklyn’s harsh Metropolitan Detention Center (where extradited healthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione now is) awaiting his May 2025 trial on sex trafficking and more. Originally filed October 20, the lawsuit took off to a whole new level on December 8. That amended complaint, in response to a suit against Buzbee in am LA Superior Court from a Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan-represented anonymous “celebrity and public figure who resides in Los Angeles,” named Jay-Z/Shawn Carter as the alleged male “Celebrity A,” a celebrity who supposedly participated in the repeated rape of the plaintiff when she was still a minor. The usually media coy Carter almost immediately responded “these allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!!” in a handwritten statement posted on the Jay-Z co-founded Roc Nation‘s social feeds.”
It only got worse as recriminations of attempted bribery, misrepresentations, competing timeline, moves to see the matter dismissed, barratry, media presentations, Hollywood premieres, fears of “evidence destruction,” and that NBC interview saw the shameful sordid matter become toxic.
Or as Spiro said to Deadline today over Buzbee’s letter: “When it became crystal clear to everyone that this case is a total sham, this lawyer who did not properly vet this claim promised to polygraph his client – where are the polygraph results?”
Having hit Combs with another Jane Doe sexual assault today in federal court in New York, Buzbee’s office did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment on the remarks by Alec Baldwin and Elon Musk lawyer Spiro. If they do, we will update.
However, if we do hear from Buzbee, don’t be surprised if he responds with words like this from today’s filing in the Diddy/Jay-Z case:
Like Mr. Combs, Mr. Carter is rich, famous, and powerful. Mr. Carter will exert all the pressure he can to intimidate and harass Plaintiff, me, or anyone else. The chilling effect of those efforts is substantial, as is the potential chilling effect of a …motion being brought in these circumstances. But ultimately, in our court system, the rules are the same for Mr. Carter and for the Plaintiff here, and the Rule 11 safe harbor cannot be abrogated on his whim.
Whether the two sides put their swords down for the holidays over this very serious and well-watched battle is anyone’s guess, but it would be a big leap for all concerned. Still, with Beyoncé set as the marquee act in the Roc Nation-produced halftime show of Netflix‘s live Christmas Day NFL match-up between the Houston Texans and the Baltimore Ravens, the world really will be watching.
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