CANNES, FRANCE – MAY 22: Sean Combs attends the ‘Killing Them Softly’ Premiere during 65th Annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 22, 2012 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
OAN’s Abril Elfi
4:11 PM – Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Sean “Diddy” Combs is seeking to dismiss certain claims made against him in a November sexual assault lawsuit.
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Combs’ attorneys are requesting that some of the claims made in a sexual assault case brought by Joi Dickerson-Neal’s legal team, which charges the rapper of drugging and molesting the 19-year-old in 1991, be dismissed from a New York court.
According to the lawsuit, Combs’ friends were allegedly shown the video footage of the assault.
The attorneys are now attempting to discredit the lawsuit and are requesting that some of the claims—such as those pertaining to revenge porn and human trafficking—be rejected with prejudice, which means they cannot be resubmitted.
They claimed that because the pertinent New York laws pertaining to revenge porn and human trafficking did not take effect until decades after the purported incident, Combs could not be sued in this particular case. The trafficking law was passed in 2007, while the revenge porn law was passed in 2019.
As part of a sex trafficking investigation led by prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, heavily armed Department of Homeland Security agents broke into Combs’ mansions in Holmby Hills and Miami on March 25th with search warrants, confiscating documents and electronics.
This is the filing that follows, according to law enforcement sources.
In the motion submitted, lawyers are asking to dismiss a large portion of the suit. Combs’ attorneys labeled its accusations as “false, offensive, and salacious” and said they “vehemently deny, substantially all of the claims purportedly alleged.”
Lawyers also sought to strike portions of the lawsuit targeting Combs’ corporations because: “the company defendants were not in existence at the time of the alleged conduct.”
Dickerson-Neal, who was a Syracuse University student at the time, allegedly met Combs during a break and “reluctantly agreed” to have dinner with him at a restaurant in Harlem. She claims that Combs “pushed” her to stay with him after their meal.
Combs then allegedly gave the woman drugs that left her in a “physical state where she could not independently stand or walk,” according to the November lawsuit. She was allegedly unable to exit the car when they arrived at a music studio, the lawsuit continues. According to the filing, he then “proceeded to a place he was staying to sexually assault her.”
Dickerson-Neal is one of several women who have filed explosive lawsuits alleging that Combs has physically and sexually abused them. Among them is Combs’ longtime singer girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura. Since then, Combs has resolved the Ventura lawsuit.
All of the lawsuits were filed under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that went into effect in November 2022 which gives victims of sexual assault a one-year statute of limitations to sue their attackers, even after the statute of limitations for the underlying alleged crimes has passed.
Producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones filed a lawsuit in February, claiming that Combs had harassed and sexually assaulted him, and that several individuals in his circle had engaged in inappropriate behavior.
Combs has since then responded to the claims on an Instagram post.
“Enough is enough. For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
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