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A New York judge has taken a definitive stance against Jay-Z‘s “relentless” attempts to strike the sexual assault lawsuit levied against him by an anonymous woman. The rapper and his lawyer Alex Spiro have issued multiple motions since the suit’s filing earlier this month, including one demanding the accuser’s anonymity be lifted.
The ruling was made Thursday, Dec. 26, by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres, who called Jay-Z and his lawyer Alex Spiro’s incessant “combative motions” “inappropriate” and a “waste of judicial resources.” In a court order obtained by Variety, Judge Torres condemned the pair for using “inflammatory language and ad hominem attacks” against the plaintiff’s lawyer, Tony Buzbee, and for “[failing] to abide by this Court’s clear rules,” including giving Jane Doe the required five days to respond. “This is unacceptable,” the judge stated.
Jay-Z was accused of joining Diddy in the rape of a 13-year-old girl at an awards show after-party
On Dec. 8, Jay-Z (whose real name is Shawn Carter) was accused by Jane Doe of drugging and raping her in 2000, when she was just 13-years-old, at an MTV Video Music Awards after-party, alongside Sean “Diddy” Combs. The suit, which originally only named Diddy, was first filed in October, and re-filed in December to include the “Big Pimpin’” rapper.
The teen, who had been driven by a friend from Rochester to Manhattan to catch a glimpse of the star-studded VMAs red carpet, was allegedly picked up by one of Diddy’s drivers. He told her she was “exactly what [Diddy] was looking for,” she recounted in an interview with NBC News. Per Jane Doe’s account, she was taken to a house, where she was handed a spiked drink before the two artists took turns assaulting her. The suit also alleges that an unnamed female celebrity watched.
The rapper’s camp has opted to discredit Jane Doe’s lawyer, who is also handling multiple other cases against Diddy
When the accusations became public, Carter issued a statement via his entertainment company Roc Nation where he accused Buzbee of blackmail.
My lawyer received a blackmail attempt, called a demand letter, from a ‘lawyer’ named Tony Buzbee. What he had calculated was the nature of these allegations and the public scrutiny would make me want to settle. No sir, it had the opposite effect!”
Weeks earlier, in an Instagram post, without naming names, Buzbee described a “’powerful’ John Doe” who had sued his firm for extortion in Los Angeles. The lawyer, who is in charge of multiple ongoing sexual assault lawsuits against Diddy, explained that the demand letters “were sent seeking a confidential mediation in lieu of filing a lawsuit” and were “no different than the ones routinely sent by lawyers across the country in all types of cases.”
Demand letters are, in fact, common procedure before the filing of a lawsuit. According to the Cornell Law website, certain state statutes may even “require prospective plaintiffs to send a demand letter to prospective defendants before they can claim a viable cause of action under the statute.”
In his lengthy text, Carter repeatedly attacked the accuser’s lawyer, calling him a “fraud,” a “deplorable human” and an “ambulance chaser in a cheap suit” who employs “theatrics” to make a buck. Carter also implored him to pursue a criminal complaint instead of a civil one. “You have made a terrible error in judgement thinking all ‘celebrities’ are the same. I’m not from your world,” he continued, concluding with, “I look forward to showing you just how different I am.”
In addition to motions related to Jane Doe’s anonymity and her lawyer’s credibility, Carter’s camp also tried to fast-track the judicial process and poke holes in the accuser’s story. In a letter, Spiro brought the Court’s attention to an NBC News interview where the Plaintiff confessed to inconsistencies in her account, including meeting Benji Madden and getting driven home by her father.
The woman maintains that, although some details of that 2000 evening are fuzzy, “what is the clearest is what happened to me.”