Jay-Z's lawyers claim his rape accuser's lawyer pressured a woman to lie about Diddy

Jay-Z has gone on the offensive against the attorney whose client anonymously accused the media mogul of sexually assaulting her in 2000.

In a Tuesday letter addressed to the judge overseeing the case, Jay-Z's lawyer Alex Spiro cast doubt on the credibility of Tony Buzbee's Houston-based law firm by claiming Buzbee and his associates have previously pressured a client to include Sean "Diddy" Combs in their allegations.

Combs, who is in jail awaiting trial in his federal sex crimes and racketeering case, has maintained his innocence amid more than two dozen mounting civil lawsuits over the past year.

Mari Henderson — an associate at Spiro's law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP — filed a declaration stating that on Monday she spoke on the phone with "a female adult resident of the State of Texas" who alleged having negative experiences with Buzbee's firm.

The woman, who did not wish for her name to be publicized due to fear of retaliation, allegedly told Henderson that despite describing her experience as "a victim of trafficking by celebrities entirely unrelated to Mr. Combs (or Mr. Carter)," Buzbee had "pressed for a connection to Mr. Combs."

The unnamed woman, according to Henderson, allegedly described feeling "directed and coached by Mr. Buzbee’s firm to say that someone held her down and put drugs in her mouth when that was not her experience. She felt forced to lie." Per Henderson, the woman said she was "dropped as a client" when she refused to change her story.

Spiro says this claim "is further evidence in support of Mr. Carter’s right to thoroughly investigate, test, and respond to the spurious allegations that have been leveled against him" and supports Jay-Z's request for Buzbee's client who sued him to identify herself.

Attorney Tony Buzbee calls Jay-Z's team 'desperate, shrill and seemingly out of control'

In a statement to USA TODAY on Tuesday, Buzbee said: "This allegation is patently ridiculous and has no support."

"If someone calls our intake group and has a viable case that we believe has merit and we can pursue we will pursue it," he added. "We are currently pursuing hundreds of cases against individuals and entities other than PDiddy. What we won’t do is pursue a case that we don’t believe has merit."

Buzbee continued, "Without telling us the woman’s name, we can’t speak specifically to what she told the intake folks to even tell you what this woman claimed if and when she called. They don’t reveal the woman’s name because the whole thing is a farce."

Buzbee also denied ever dropping a client for not pursuing claims against Combs.

"We don’t pressure people nor do we need to. What we have done is reject potential cases from people we find to not be credible," he said. "Understand we get a lot of prank and pretend calls. And we get a lot of calls from people who claim they are aggrieved but we just can’t help them. We certainly don’t need to 'pressure' anyone to pursue a case because we already have more cases than we can handle.

"What we can’t and won’t do is pursue a case we perceive to be weak or insupportable," Buzbee said.

Later, Buzbee went on to call Jay-Z's team "desperate, shrill and seemingly out of control" and added that "each allegation they have manufactured to date is an effort to divert attention to the serious allegations made by clients."

"We won’t allow ourselves to be distracted by such foolishness," he said. "And we won’t be intimidated or permit our clients to be silenced."

Legal battle between Jay-Z and Tony Buzbee has been brewing since November

In October, Buzbee announced he would be filing civil lawsuits from more than 100 alleged victims who experienced "violent sexual assault or rape" by Combs.

In one case, a woman anonymously filed a lawsuit in October claiming Combs raped her at an MTV Video Music Awards after-party in 2000, when she was 13. On Sunday, she amended her complaint to allege Jay-Z was the other previously unnamed celebrity who'd raped her.

Jay-Z responded with a scathing statement calling the allegations "heinous in nature" as well as "a blackmail attempt." He also confirmed he was the unnamed "high-profile" male celebrity who sued Buzbee in November and his law firm for "shamelessly attempting to extort exorbitant sums from him" through the threat of litigation.

Buzbee dismissed the lawsuit as "frivolous" and called it an "aggressive attempt to intimidate or silence me and ultimately my clients."

Contributing: Edward Segarra, USA TODAY

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers free, confidential, 24/7 support to survivors and their loved ones in English and Spanish at: 800.656.HOPE (4673) and Hotline.RAINN.org and en Espa?ol RAINN.org/es.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jay-Z's lawyers claim Tony Buzbee pressured a client to lie