On Sunday, a disturbing development in the mounting case against Sean "Diddy" Combs arrived. Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter has been accused of raping a 13-year-old girl at an MTV Video Music Awards afterparty at Combs’ home in 2000. Carter has vehemently denied the allegations and accused the lawyer, Tony Buzbee, of blackmail.
In October, Buzbee, who is reportedly representing 120 individuals, each alleging Combs sexually assaulted them, held a press conference announcing that he'd be filing a number of lawsuits over the next 30 days. Since then, Buzbee has filed 12 cases with more expected.
“We will expose the enablers who enabled this conduct behind closed doors,” Buzbee said at the time. “We will pursue this matter no matter who the evidence implicates.” In one of those lawsuits, Carter was referred to as "Celebrity A." His name was added as a defendant when the suit was re-filed on Sunday in New York.
The plaintiff — identified only as Jane Doe — claims she was raped by Combs and Carter at the afterparty in 2000 while a third celebrity, a woman, watched. Doe — now 37 years old — described accepting a drink at the party and soon after, becoming disoriented and dizzy. She claims she was invited to the party by a limo driver who worked for Combs.
While inside the party, the lawsuit alleges, "after attempting to talk to numerous celebrities, Plaintiff accepted a drink from one of the waitresses circulating the crowd." Doe then began to feel "woozy and lightheaded" after drinking "a portion of the drink." She looked for a place to rest and lied down in an empty bedroom, as detailed in both the original suit and the more recent filing.
“Soon after, Combs, along with a male and female celebrity, entered the room. […] Combs aggressively approached Plaintiff with a crazed look in his eyes, grabbed her, and said, ‘You are ready to party!’”
The lawsuit then alleges that Carter restrained Doe and raped her as Combs and the unnamed female celebrity watched. Afterward, Combs then raped her while Carter and the woman watched, the filing said. When Combs attempted to force Doe to perform oral sex on him, she managed to grab her belongings and get away, according to the lawsuit. Doe is seeking unspecified damages.
Carter swiftly responded to the allegations with a lengthy statement posted by the Twitter account belonging to his music management company, Roc Nation. In it, he denied the claims and notably lamented the "loss of innocence" with regard to telling his children of the allegations, not of the woman at the center of them.
"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! It made me want to expose you for the fraud you are in a VERY public fashion. So no, I will not give you ONE RED PENNY!!"
"Only your network of conspiracy theorists, fake physics, will believe the idiotic claims you have levied against me that, if not for the seriousness surrounding harm to kids, would be laughable," Carter added before going on to describe the measures he and wife Beyoncé Knowles Carter will take in speaking to their three children about the claims.
“My only heartbreak is for my family," he said. "My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims and explain the cruelty and greed of people. I mourn yet another loss of innocence.”
In addition, Carter's attorneys filed a request for the plaintiff's identity to be revealed should she proceed with her case.
Meanwhile, Buzbee claimed that his client only sought a private mediation and that Carter has fought the allegations behind the scenes. He also said that he was sued by an anonymous male celebrity in November who accused Buzbee of extortion. In response, Buzbee denied the allegations. The male celebrity in question, Buzbee now claims was Carter.
"What he fails to say in his recent statement is my firm sent his lawyer a demand letter on behalf of an alleged victim and that victim never demanded a penny from him. Instead, she only sought a confidential mediation," Buzbee wrote on Twitter. "Since I sent the letter on her behalf, Mr. Carter has not only sued me, but he has tried to bully and harass me and this plaintiff. His conduct has had the opposite impact. She is emboldened. I'm very proud of her resolve."
Buzbee also wrote on Instagram that he won't be intimidated though unspecified parties have tried in a myriad of ways.
"Despite a coordinated and aggressive effort that has included harassing my kids, contacting my clients and former clients to encourage them to sue me, contacting my colleagues or former employees asking if I’ve “abused” them, showing up at my current employees’ homes to harass them, filing frivolous cases against me and my law firm, defaming me with outrageous assertions to anyone who will listen, and having mysterious people follow me and my family," Buzbee said. "People will see through this effort to discredit me and my clients and the truth will be revealed. I also won't allow anyone to scare my clients into silence."
Beyoncé has not publicly commented on the claims, but her mother, Tina Knowles, reportedly "liked" a post about the suit against her son-in-law on Instagram...
Since he was indicted on three counts of sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution in September, Combs has denied all allegations and continues to seek release from incarceration at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center on bail. He has been denied bail three times, as recently as November.
