After a Jane Doe’s Diddy lawsuit was amended to include Jay-Z as a defendant, Jay-Z filed a motion stating that the accuser should be required to give her name.
Just one day after a lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs was amended to include Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) as a defendant, Carter filed a motion stating that the Jane Doe accuser should be obliged to litigate under her own name.
Jane Doe’s lawsuit first identified Carter as “Celebrity A,” and accused him of raping her and Combs during a VMAs afterparty in 2000 when she was 13 years old. Carter’s attorneys claim the charges are “patently false” and part of a “campaign of extortion” by attorney Tony Buzbee, who represents a number of victims who have brought cases against Combs.
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“Mr. Carter should not have to defend himself in the brightest of spotlights against an accuser who hides in complete darkness,” says Carter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro. “Mr. Carter deserves to know the identity of the person who is effectively accusing him — in sensationalized, publicity-hunting fashion — of criminal conduct, demanding massive financial compensation, and tarnishing a reputation earned over decades.”
While plaintiffs in sexual assault lawsuits may proceed behind pseudonyms if there is a high fear of reprisal, this is uncommon. Judges have already ordered Jane Doe accusers in many other civil claims filed against Combs to reveal their identities.
Carter’s lawyers cite those past rulings, claiming that the accuser has failed to meet any of the basic standards for maintaining anonymity in her lawsuit. “Mr. Carter now is entitled to defend himself against these allegations with benefit of all the protections and mechanisms available to defendants,” Spiro writes in his essay. “To be clear, attorney Buzbee’s strategy has been to keep Mr. Carter from defending himself by punching below the belt. Today, that game is over, and Mr. Carter’s defense has begun, with the plaintiff’s unmasking.”
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Buzbee has claimed to represent 120 people who claim to have been abused by Combs, and he has now filed more than a dozen civil actions on their behalf, many of whom have requested anonymity.
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