With less than week to go before Beyoncé is set to headline the halftime show at Netflix and the NFL’s Christmas Day face-off between the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans, the next few days could prove pivotal in Jay-Z’s attempt to end the rape case against him and Sean “Diddy” Combs for the alleged assault of a 13-year-old girl in 2000.
Based in no small part on a NBC News interview the plaintiff gave late last week throwing parts of her own case under the bus, the ’99 Problems’ rapper’s longtime lawyer called the whole sordid matter a “sham’ in a letter late last week to the judge in the case.
While nothing has shown up on the docket yet, Jay-Z’s longtime attorney Alex Spiro promised just before the weekend to file another motion “immediately” to get the thing dismissed. Today. seeking to disassociate his client from the much accused and incarcerated sex trafficking charged Combs, Spiro did appear at the NYC HQ of the Jay-Z founded Roc Nation to reiterate to assembled media much of what he said in the December 13 letter.
“When pressed, the Plaintiff admitted she was ‘guessing’ about key details, including the time it took to reach the venue,” writes Spiro of the small screen sit-down in the December 13 letter to the federal judge overseeing the case. “She admits she has no single corroborating witness over the last 24 years.”
“These stunning revelations make clear that the complaint filed by plaintiffs’ attorney, Anthony Buzbee, therefore had no factual basis whatsoever,” the Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner added. “Even Mr. Buzbee is walking back the complaint he put his name to – excusing these glaring inconsistencies by pointing the finger at the case being referred by another firm who allegedly vetted the story before sending to them. The heinous allegations against Mr. Carter are patently false.”
Leaning hard into his take-no-prisoners persona, Spiro also went for the jugular in his letter of late last week by questioning the ethics and jurisdictional rights of Houston-based Buzbee, who has filed dozens of suits against Combs and says he has over 100 clients with sexual assault allegations against the Bad Boy Records founder. “Mr. Buzbee thus appears to have strategically declined to seek admission in order to avoid sanctions for a complaint that he knew had no factual basis,” says the high-profile Spiro in the three-page correspondence to NYC-based Judge Analisa Torres.
Spiro made headlines for another high-profile client when the lawyer orchestrated Alec Baldwin‘s manslaughter case for the 2021 fatal of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins being tossed out during trial this summer.
Nether Spiro nor Buzbee got back to Deadline over request for comment on the proposed motion to dismiss nor the aspersions cast against the latter lawyer by the former.
Obviously, Spiro’s remarks in Manhattan today speak for themselves, though no adding much to the situation. The usually social media savvy Buzbee has posted nothing on this case or anything else since December 10. If either attorney or their office do respond, this post will be updated.
The rape of the then teen Jane Doe is said to have occurred on September 7, 2000 during one of Diddy’s drug fueled so-called “freak offs” just after that year’s MTV VMAs. A very graphic October 20 filed lawsuit named Combs for the rape, but merely mentioned a male “Celebrity A” and a female “Celebrity B” who also carnally participated. Jay-Z was named as the “Celebrity A” in a December 8 refiling by Buzbee following a separate suit from a Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan-represented anonymous “celebrity and public figure who resides in Los Angeles” (who was later revealed to clearly be Jay-Z) went after the Texas lawyer for extortion.
Staying in the public eye since his name was added to the one of the many suits against old buddy Combs, Jay-Z has made a strategic decision to adamantly deny the claims and be active at Tinseltown premieres, online and with backing up from business partners the NFL. To that, right after his name was put on the table on December 8, the Roc Nation founder took to his company’s X/Twitter feed to proclaim: “These allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!!”
A day later, Spiro filed a motion that stated: “Defendant is respectfully seeking either dismissal of the allegations or disclosure of the Plaintiff’s identity.” The still unyet filed new motion to dismiss threatened in Spiro’s December 13 letter picks up on the previous dismissal move, it seems.
On December 10, Jay-Z and his Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan team sent letters to Judge Analisa Torres once again calling the matter “false,” and as well smearing Buzbee’s office of client picking to add more accusations against Combs. In response, Buzbee called such a claim “patently ridiculous.” The Texas lawyer also countered that Jay-Z’s side was participating in “reprehensible and illegal” tactics of promising clients $1,000 to turn on Buzee.
Failing in late November in his third attempt at getting a proposed $50 million bail approved, Combs is set to go on trial for racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution on May 5, 2025. Behind bars at Brooklyn’s brutal Metropolitan Detention Centre since his arrest in a NYC hotel lobby on September 16, the 55-year-old Combs, who has entered a not guilty plea, faces life in prison if found guilty by a jury of his peers.
Days after scoring a win over the formerly Damain Williams-led SDNY U.S. Attorney’s office over access to a laptop, Combs came up short today in a motion to for discovery and a hearing on whether or not the feds are leaking material on him. Now able review defense documents at the MDC, Combs is likely to appear in court in a pretrial conference hearing in his criminal case December 18.
The government case will be fronted by Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y Kim, who took over once Joe Biden-appoint Williams officially resigned from office at 11:59 pm ET on December 13. Williams was set to be replaced by ex-Securities and Exchange chair Jay Clayton once Donald Trump returns to power on January 20th.
There is no indication that the new regime will be altering the office’s approach to Combs criminal case once Clayton takes over.
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