Attorney Tony Buzbee (left), Jay-Z (right)
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle/Getty Images; Monica Schipper/WireImage
Jay-Z ramped up his scorched-earth defense against the accusation that he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl with Sean “Diddy” Combs in 2000, suing the woman’s lawyer Tony Buzbee for defamation.
The Roc Nation mogul, whose real name is Shawn Carter, vehemently denied the Jane Doe’s “heinous” accusation and his high-powered attorney Alex Spiro laid out a defense that highlighted inconsistencies in the woman’s complaint. “This is utter falsehoods,” Spiro said. (Combs’ lawyers also denied the woman’s claims, saying he has “never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor.”)
While Carter’s team fights to dismiss the woman’s case in New York, the rapper has directed his furor at Buzbee, a media-savvy, national trial attorney who positioned himself at the center of the civil litigation against Combs. Claiming to represent more than 120 alleged victims, Buzbee also vowed to go after other “high-profile” celebrities who he claimed were involved or complicit in the alleged abuse.
As Buzbee began filing a series of lawsuits against Combs in October, Carter claimed that Buzbee sent him a demand letter on Nov. 5 that he felt was a thinly-veiled blackmail attempt. In response, Carter filed an extortion lawsuit against Buzbee as a John Doe on Nov. 17, later confirming he was the plaintiff when he was named in the Jane Doe’s complaint on Dec. 8.
Last Friday, Carter’s lawyers added a defamation claim to the lawsuit, revealing more details about the demand letter and taking aim at Buzbee’s reputation, according to court documents obtained by Rolling Stone. “Viewed in the context of Buzbee’s prior statements threatening to file criminal complaints against, and publicly shame, a ‘long list’ of celebrities, the message in the Extortion Demands was clear: pay up, or face a criminal investigation and extraordinary reputational harm,” Carter’s lawyers argue in court papers.
Carter claims Buzbee’s demand letter only gave a two-week window to commit to a “confidential mediation” regarding an alleged male and female victim who claimed they had been drugged and raped as minors. “It has been my experience that when someone does this to a victim once, the likelihood is that they have done the same or similar things to others,” Buzbee allegedly wrote in the letter, bolding the sentence.
Buzbee’s clients were seeking “‘something of substance’ by way of a settlement,” Carter’s lawyers allege. If Carter couldn’t reach an agreement, Buzbee would “take a different course.”
“In short, Defendants placed a gun to Mr. Carter’s head,” the lawsuit adds. “They were demanding that Mr. Carter either: (a) pay ‘something of substance’ to stop Defendants from making public the wildly false allegations of sexual assault that would subject Mr. Carter to opprobrium and irreparably harm his reputation, family, career and livelihood, or (2) endure that financial and personal ruin. Defendants’ statements and correspondence made clear the immediate and extensive threat of exposure if Mr. Carter failed to pay.”
Carter’s attorneys claim that Buzbee began defaming Carter back in October, accusing the attorney of going on a “media crusade to threaten and intimidate anyone who may have ever come into contact with Combs.” They included screenshots of Buzbee’s social media activity, including him liking a post that speculated Carter was involved in Combs’ alleged sexual assaults.
His attorneys also zeroed in on a TMZ article from Dec. 10, where Buzbee indicated that his client might file a criminal complaint against Carter in New York. “These were no idle comments,” the lawsuit claims. “Buzbee’s words were carefully calculated to leave the public with one unavoidable conclusion: that Mr. Carter was facing imminent criminal prosecution for rape. This is defamation per se because he directly and falsely accused Mr. Carter of committing the horrendous criminal act of rape.”
“The new claim is patently frivolous and will be dismissed,” Buzbee wrote in a statement to Rolling Stone. “I’ve never said a word about him. This is just another attempt to bully and intimidate me. It just won’t work.”
As part of the amended lawsuit, Carter referenced an NBC News interview in which the accuser spoke to the outlet about the alleged assault. However, NBC found numerous subsequent inconsistencies in her story. Buzbee replied that “our client remains fiercely adamant that what she has stated is true, to the best of her memory. We will continue to vet her claims and collect corroborating data to the extent it exists.”
Carter’s defamation claim against Buzbee is yet another escalation in the war between the pair. Last week, Buzbee filed a lawsuit against Roc Nation, accusing the company and its lawyers of using “shadowy operatives” and promising paydays to illegally entice former Buzbee clients into filing “frivolous” claims against him.
Roc Nation quickly denied the accusation, calling the lawsuit “baloney” and a “pathetic attempt to distract and deflect attention” from the case. “Mr. Carter is not someone who can be intimidated,” Carter’s lawyers added on Friday. “He filed this lawsuit to preemptively call out Buzbee for the miscreant that he is.”
From Rolling Stone US.
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