A lawyer for Shawn Carter, the hip-hop mogul known as Jay-Z, asked a judge Monday to deny a request to remain anonymous from the woman who has accused Carter of raping her in 2000 when she was a 13-year-old girl, allegedly along with rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs.
In a court filing, Carter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, argued that the accuser’s decision to file a lawsuit against Carter under the name “Jane Doe” was “inconsistent with a genuine effort to determine the truth or falsity of these allegations as opposed to an effort to procure a quick, extortionate settlement.”
Spiro said that Carter was “respectfully seeking either dismissal of the allegations or disclosure of the Plaintiff’s identity.”
“It is not consistent with justice, fairness or the rules governing federal proceedings for the Plaintiff and her counsel to smear Defendant’s good name in ways that are calculated to feed media coverage and thus inflict maximum public relations damage while the core fact of Plaintiff’s identity … remains wholly hidden from view,” Spiro added.
Texas-based attorney Tony Buzbee, who filed the lawsuit against Carter and Combs, responded to Spiro’s motion in an interview Monday with NBC News. “Anyone that suggests that a demand letter, especially the one that I sent, is extortion or blackmail, is foolish,” Buzbee said.
“These kinds of demand letters are sent on a daily basis across the United States, and attempting to attack me to take the focus off of the alleged perpetrator won’t work and it won’t intimidate us,” he added.
In the lawsuit against Carter and Combs, filed in the Southern District of New York, the accuser alleges that the assault took place after she was driven to an MTV Video Music Awards afterparty in 2000.
In a lengthy statement Sunday night, following NBC News’ report on the lawsuit, Carter vehemently denied the allegation, blasted it as “idiotic” and accused Buzbee of engaging in unprofessional behavior.
“These allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!! Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree?” Carter said in a statement to NBC News. “These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case.”
Buzbee has filed several lawsuits against Combs in recent months, accusing the “I’ll Be Missing You” singer of assault and rape. Combs has been charged by federal prosecutors in New York with racketeering, sex trafficking and other offenses. He is in custody in Brooklyn and scheduled to go on trial May 5.
In a statement, Combs’ legal representatives referred to the lawsuits against him as “shameless publicity stunts, designed to extract payments from celebrities who fear having lies spread about them, just as lies have been spread about Mr. Combs.” Combs’ representatives insisted their client “never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor.”
In the lawsuit against Carter and Combs, the “Jane Doe” accuser claimed a limousine driver who worked for Combs invited her to a house party after the VMAs and told her she “fit what Diddy was looking for.”
The driver eventually drove her to a white house with a U-shaped driveway, where she had to sign what she believed was a nondisclosure agreement to enter the party, according to the suit. The party was filled with celebrities and people doing drugs. She was offered a drink that made her feel “woozy, lightheaded and felt [like] she needed to lie down,” the suit says.
She went into a room to rest and, shortly afterward, Combs and Carter entered. She alleges that’s when Carter removed her clothes, held her down and raped her while Combs and an unnamed female celebrity watched. She alleges Combs also raped her as Carter and the unnamed woman looked on.
The lawsuit says the accuser managed to resist being forced to perform oral sex on Combs by hitting him in the neck. In the wake of the alleged assault, the suit says, the accuser “grabbed her clothes” and left. She went to a gas station, where she called her father.