(Los Angeles) Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs opposed a woman’s lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault, filing a motion Friday to dismiss certain claims that were not in effect at the time of the alleged crime.
The motion filed in a New York court asserts that Combs cannot be prosecuted because certain laws did not exist when Joi Dickerson-Neal made the allegations against him in 1991.
The music mogul’s lawyers want some laws stemming from M’s allegationsme Dickerson-Neal, such as revenge porn and human trafficking, be dismissed with prejudice.
In a court filing last year, she claimed Combs “intentionally drugged” her, then took her home and sexually assaulted her after a date in Harlem when she was a student 19 years old.
Unbeknownst to him, Combs filmed the assault and later shared it with several friends in the music industry, according to the lawsuit. He has denied the allegations, accusing her of seeking to exploit New York’s law that temporarily extends the statute of limitations.
While Friday’s motion seeks to dismiss the case on legal grounds, Diddy’s lawyers and the mogul “vehemently deny” what they called “numerous false, offensive and salacious accusations” in the lawsuit.
M’s complaintme Dickerson-Neal comes nearly three decades after the rapper’s alleged actions, and New York state’s revenge porn law was not codified until 2019, Combs’ lawyers said. His lawyers also pointed to a few others, including New York’s Services for Victims of Human Trafficking Act, which took effect in 2007.
The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they were sexually abused unless they publicly denounce it, as M.me Dickerson-Neal.
Last month, Combs’ properties in Los Angeles and Miami were raided by federal authorities as part of a sex trafficking investigation. The criminal investigation marks a major escalation in scrutiny of Combs, who has been accused in several recent sexual abuse lawsuits.
In a lawsuit settled the day after he was filed in November, his former protégé and girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie, sued him, alleging years of sexual abuse, including rape. The lawsuit says he forced her to have sex with prostitutes while he filmed them.
In February, a music producer filed a lawsuit alleging that Combs forced him to solicit prostitutes and pressured him to have sex with them.
Another of Combs’ accusers was a woman who said he raped her twenty years ago, when she was 17.
Combs and his attorneys have denied all allegations in the lawsuits.