Attorneys for embattled musician and producer Sean "Diddy" Combs are asking a New York court to throw out portions of a civil suit accusing the rapper and mogul of sexual assault and revenge porn.
In a motion filed Friday (local time) in the State of New York courts, Combs’ attorneys raised procedural issues with a suit filed last year against the artist and his company Bad Boy Records by Joi Dickerson-Neal, who said she was "intentionally drugged" by Combs and sexually assaulted when she was a college student in 1991. Around the time, she had appeared with Combs in a music video, per the suit.
The lawsuit also alleged Combs had filmed the sexual assault and shown it to others, claiming that days after the alleged assault, a male friend revealed to Dickerson he had viewed video of it.
In response to the initial suit, a spokesperson for Combs said the allegations are "made up and not credible", discrediting the accusations as "purely a money grab".
In their motion filed Friday, attorneys for Combs doubled down on their denial, calling Dickerson-Neal’s allegations "false, offensive, and salacious", and asked a judge to dismiss portions of the suit, claiming certain allegations against Combs "were brought under statutes that did not exist at the time the alleged misconduct occurred". They also wrote that allegations against Combs' company should be dismissed as the company did not exist at the time of the alleged incident.
Since November, Combs has faced six separate civil lawsuits alleging sexual assault or other allegations – with one lawsuit since settled. Combs has denied any wrongdoing.
Last month, federal agents in Los Angeles and Miami executed search warrants at properties owned by Combs, who is the target of a federal criminal probe, a law enforcement source told CNN. A separate law enforcement source said the searches were part of an ongoing sex trafficking investigation. Combs' attorney, Aaron Dyer, criticised the searches as "a gross overuse of military-level force".
Representatives for Combs had no additional comment on this latest motion when reached by CNN.
CNN
