- Jay-Z has filed his first response to a lawsuit alleging he and Sean “Diddy” Combs raped a 13-year-old.
- He said he wanted to force the woman to proceed under her real name instead of Jane Doe.
- A lawyer for the woman said she fears retribution and harassment if she is named.
Rapper Jay-Z is fighting to quickly unmask the Jane Doe accuser who has sued him and Sean “Diddy” Combs over allegations that she was sexually attacked after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards when she was 13 years old.
The accuser, who lives in Alabama, alleges in her lawsuit that she was given a drugged drink at a party “at a large white house” somewhere in New York, and was then raped by both rap A-listers as a third, unnamed female celebrity watched.
In papers filed Monday, a lawyer for Jay-Z — given name Shawn Carter — complained that the accuser should not be allowed to tarnish his name while hiding her identity.
In a 29-page filing in federal court in Manhattan, Carter says that the woman had previously sought money from him and that he had refused to pay.
The filing is Carter’s first formal response to the new accusations, and follows his strongly-worded denial from Sunday on his company Roc Nation’s X account.
Carter’s attorney, Alex Spiro, said in Monday’s filing that the lawsuit is a good thing.
“Now, at last, the false, unfounded allegations that underlie this campaign of extortion are having judicial light shined on them,” Spiro wrote. “Except that this Plaintiff is bringing them as a Doe, who would continue to hide under cover of darkness.”
When the Jane Doe first filed her lawsuit, in October, she had named only Combs, his companies and his associates as defendants. On Sunday she filed an updated lawsuit that removed a reference to “Celebrity A” and added “Shawn Carter” as defendant.
“Another celebrity stood by and watched as Combs and Carter took turns assaulting the minor,” the updated lawsuit reads, continuing to protect the identity of that third person.
The woman’s lawyer, Tony Buzbee, confirmed to Business Insider on Sunday there had been previous contact between the Jane Doe and Carter. Buzbee said he had sent a letter to Carter requesting mediation before naming him in Sunday’s updated lawsuit.
Carter responded to that outreach with a campaign of “harassment, bullying, and intimidation against Plaintiff’s lawyers, their families, employees, and former associates in an attempt to silence Plaintiff from naming Jay-Z herein,” the updated lawsuit alleges.
In fighting to keep his client’s Jane Doe status as the lawsuit proceeds, Buzbee told a federal judge on Sunday that anonymity is necessary to protect all of his clients who are accusing Combs of sexual assault.
“My firm currently represents over 200 clients with claims against Mr. Combs,” Buzbee wrote in a filing on Sunday.
More than 80 percent of these clients have said Combs threatened them or their family members in hopes of keeping them quiet, Buzbee wrote.
“For many of the clients referenced above, Mr. Combs’ threats of violence were a primary reason why they did not speak out or file lawsuits earlier. Most of our clients still fear retribution and have conditioned moving forward on anonymity,” he wrote.
Since mid-October, Buzbee has filed some 20 lawsuits in which men and women allege they were sexually assaulted by Combs.
Buzbee told Business Insider that he had anticipated Carter’s move to unmask his client and said that he would be filing a response “in due course.”
He also said that he believes Carter is the celebrity John Doe who sued him in November. “He sued me under a pseudonym but files a motion to reveal the victim,” Buzbee said.
BI could not confirm that Jay-Z is the one suing Buzbee. The John Doe plaintiff’s identity has not been revealed in court filings and would not have been disclosed in the documents Buzbee was served.
Spiro did not immediately respond to requests by phone and email for comment on this story.
In a separate filing on Monday, Spiro also asked US District Court Judge Analisa Torres to schedule a hearing “on an expedited basis” at which both sides would make their case for why the plaintiff should or should not remain anonymous.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Mr. Carter is entirely innocent,” he wrote. “This is a shakedown.”
He added, “Allowing Plaintiff to proceed anonymously would deny Mr. Carter the fundamental right to confront his accuser, while simultaneously enabling Plaintiff and her counsel to conduct a trial by media.”
Combs remains held in a federal jail in Brooklyn on his September federal sex-trafficking indictment. Combs has pleaded not guilty and has promised to fight that indictment at a trial scheduled for May 5.
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