Combs asks for dismissal of ‘false’ rape claim

Sean “Diddy” Combs on Friday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that he and two codefendants raped a 17-yearold girl in a New York recording studio in 2003, saying it was a “false and hideous claim” that was filed too late under the law.

The legal move is the latest piece of pushback from the 54-year-old hip-hop mogul and his legal team after he was subjected to several similar lawsuits and a subsequent criminal sextrafficking investigation.

“Mr. Combs and his companies categorically deny Plaintiff’s decades-old tale against them, which has caused incalculable damage to their reputations and business standing before any evidence has been presented,” says the filing, which also names Combs-owned corporations as defendants. “Plaintiff cannot allege what day or time of year the alleged incident occurred, but miraculously remembers other salacious details, despite her alleged incapacitated condition.”

The lawsuit was filed in December and amended in March by the woman who now lives in Canada whose name wasn’t disclosed in the court filing. She said she was in 11th grade at a high school in a Detroit suburb in 2003, when Harve Pierre, then the president of Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment record label, flew her to New York on a private jet and took her to a recording studio, where she was given drugs and alcohol until she was incapable of consenting to sex. Then, the lawsuit said, Pierre, Combs and a man she didn’t know took turns raping her.

The lawsuit included photographs of the woman sitting on Combs’ lap that she said were taken on the night in question.

The defense filing asks that the case be “dismissed now, with prejudice” — meaning it cannot be refiled — “to protect the Combs Defendants from further reputational injury and before more party and judicial resources are squandered.”

One of the plaintiff’s attorneys, Michael J. Willemin, said in a statement in response to the filing: “At this point, no one should take anything ‘diddy’ or his lawyers say seriously. Today’s motion is just a desperate attempt by Combs to avoid accountability for Ms. Doe’s allegations of gang rape and sexual assault. It won’t work.”

At this early stage in the lawsuit, the arguments are procedural rather than on the facts of the case.