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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 beneath the regulation.
The authorized transfer is the most recent piece of pushback from the 54-year-old hip-hop mogul and his authorized group after he was subjected to a number of comparable lawsuits and a subsequent felony sex-trafficking investigation.
“Mr. Combs and his corporations categorically deny Plaintiff’s decades-old story in opposition to them, which has induced incalculable harm 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 yr 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 girl who now lives in Canada whose identify wasn’t disclosed within the court docket submitting. She mentioned she was in 11th grade at a highschool in a Detroit suburb in 2003, when Harve Pierre, then the president of Combs’ Unhealthy Boy Leisure report 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 mentioned, Pierre, Combs and a person she did not know took turns raping her.
The lawsuit included pictures of the girl sitting on Combs’ lap that she mentioned had 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 harm and earlier than extra get together and judicial sources are squandered.”
At this early stage within the lawsuit, the arguments are procedural reasonably than on the info of the case.
A number of 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 briefly suspended sure authorized deadlines to present sexual assault victims a final alternative to sue over abuse that occurred years and even a long time in the past.
The brand new deadlines established by that regulation expired, however the swimsuit Combs filed the movement in opposition to Friday was introduced beneath a distinct 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 swimsuit 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 handle a few of these points, however Combs’ attorneys argue that it didn’t go far sufficient.
The choose has dominated the girl 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 finished.
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 lawyer who filed the swimsuit being challenged Friday, was settled the day after it was filed. Combs denied the allegations by means of 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 houses in Los Angeles and Miami in a sex-trafficking investigation. His lawyer known as it “a gross use of military-level power.” The investigation is continuous. 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 scholar 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 an announcement in December that the “depravity of those abhorrent acts has, not surprisingly, scarred our shopper for all times.”
Related Press Leisure Author Jonathan Landrum contributed to this report.
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