The woman who accused Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs of drugging and raping her when she was 13 years old can remain anonymous for now, a judge ruled Thursday (Dec. 26), citing the “highly sensitive” nature of her accusations.
According to court documents obtained by Billboard, Judge Annalisa Torres wrote that “the weight of the factors” in the case “tips in favor of allowing Plaintiff to remain anonymous” for now. In justifying the decision, the judge cited the Jane Doe’s assertion that she continues to suffer from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other health effects due to the alleged rape, as well as a claim by the woman’s attorneys that Combs has threatened other alleged victims who have filed suits against him for speaking out. However, the judge acknowledges that “because the balance of these factors will certainly shift” as the case moves forward, she plans to revisit the question of anonymity at a later date.
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Also in Thursday’s ruling, the judge turned down a request by Jay-Z’s legal team to fast-track a hearing on their motion to dismiss the case against him and criticized the rap mogul’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, for his “relentless filing of combative motions containing inflammatory language and ad hominem attacks” against the plaintiff’s attorney, Tony Buzbee, calling them “inappropriate, a waste of judicial resources, and a tactic unlikely to benefit his client.” The motion to expedite the hearing was tied to a Dec. 13 NBC News interview in which the Jane Doe admitted to inconsistencies and “mistakes” in her narrative of the alleged assault and was contradicted by her own father.
In the woman’s complaint, filed earlier this month, she accused Combs and Jay-Z (born Shawn Carter) of drugging and sexually assaulting her following an MTV Video Music Awards after-party in 2000. The case was an updated version of a previous complaint the woman had filed against Combs alone.
Since the updated case including Carter was filed on Dec. 8, the rap mogul and his attorneys have forcefully denied the allegations, with Carter calling the lawsuit a “blackmail attempt” and characterizing Buzbee as a “fraud” with an aim “to exploit people for personal gain.” Buzbee has filed a host of lawsuits against Combs over the last several months and has said he represents dozens more victims who have yet to file their own complaints.
In a statement sent to Billboard in response to Thursday’s court ruling, Buzbee said that “the coordinated and desperate efforts to attack me as counsel for alleged victims are falling flat.”
An attorney for Carter did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.
The latest decision in the case comes as part of a mounting legal war between Jay-Z and Buzbee. On Dec. 18, Buzbee filed a lawsuit against Jay-Z’s company, Roc Nation, and its attorneys (including Marcy Croft and law firm Quinn Emanuel) accusing them of “engaging shadowy operatives” to derail his case against the rapper, including by allegedly offering money to one of his former clients (Gerardo Garcia) to convince him to file bogus lawsuits against his firm — an incident Buzbee claims was caught on tape. “Defendants have conspired to obstruct justice by engaging shadowy operatives to illegally seek out more than two dozen current and former clients of The Buzbee Law Firm to convince those clients to bring frivolous cases against [the firm],” Buzbee wrote.
In response, a Roc Nation spokesperson called Buzbee’s lawsuit “nothing but another sham” and “a pathetic attempt to distract and deflect attention,” while Croft reacted by calling the allegations in the lawsuit “false” and “a desperate attempt to distract from his mounting legal woes.”
Buzbee’s Dec. 18 lawsuit is actually the second he’s filed against Carter’s attorneys over the past month. The first, filed earlier in December, accused Quinn Emanuel of retaliatory behavior, including alleged harassment of Buzbee’s colleagues, clients and family. That came in response to a lawsuit Jay-Z secretly filed against Buzbee in November in which the rapper accused the Texas attorney of spearheading an effort to extract settlements from innocent celebrities after threatening to link them to Combs.
