‘Prominent’ Figure Sues Lawyer Representing Sean Combs Accusers
An anonymous, self-described “celebrity” alleges in a new lawsuit that a prominent Houston lawyer is “shamelessly” trying to extort him while representing more than a hundred men and women with purported legal claims against Sean “Diddy” Combs.
The unidentified plaintiff, who calls himself as a “public figure” who’s attended several events with Combs, sued attorney Tony Buzbee in California on Monday. The man claims he received a demand letter from Buzbee’s firm with “entirely fabricated and malicious allegations of sexual assault” in an alleged attempt to force a private settlement. Buzbee vehemently denied any wrongdoing in a social media post Monday afternoon, calling the extortion allegation “frivolous.”
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According to the new lawsuit obtained by Rolling Stone, the demand letter allegedly included “wildly false horrific allegations” claiming that the man “raped multiple minors, both male and female, who had been drugged at parties hosted by Combs.” The plaintiff says Buzbee “threatened” to “take a different course” if the man did not commit to a confidential mediation. The plaintiff says he took this to mean Buzbee would file more claims, make further public statements and report him to the FBI.
“Plaintiff presently faces a gun to his head — either repeatedly pay an exorbitant sum of money to stop defendant from the wide publication of wildly false allegations of sexual assault that would subject plaintiff to opprobrium and irreparably harm plaintiff’s reputation, family, career and livelihood, or else face the threat of an untold number of civil suits and financial and personal ruin,” the lawsuit alleges. “This is textbook extortion.”
The plaintiff claims Buzbee is focusing attention on third parties with “deep pockets” because Combs is sitting in a Brooklyn jail awaiting a sex trafficking trial. “With Combs behind bars, and payments unlikely to be forthcoming any time soon, defendants devised a scheme to obtain payments through the use of coercive threats from anyone with any ties to Combs – no matter how remote,” the lawsuit states.
When Buzbee fired back Monday afternoon, he called the “powerful” man’s lawsuit “a last-ditch attempt to stop me from revealing names in public lawsuits. It won’t work.” The national trial attorney said he was ready for a fight. “I am a US Marine,” he wrote on Instagram. “I won’t be silenced or intimidated. Neither will my clients.”
Buzbee, who boasts he’s collected more than $10 billion in damages for his clients, entered the fray of civil litigation against Combs in late September. He said his 120 clients went through a “stringent” vetting process. “When we talk about the ages of the victims when the conduct occurred, it’s shocking,” Buzbee told reporters. “Our youngest victim at the time of the occurrence was nine years old. We have an individual who was 14 years old. We have one who was 15.” (Combs has vehemently denied all accusations of sexual assault.)
Since mid-October, Buzbee has filed more than a dozen lawsuits against Combs in New York. The Jane and John Doe accusers claim they were assaulted at White Parties, industry events, hotels, a department store and at Combs’ own home. Most claim they were drugged first. The alleged incidents span from the 1990s through 2022.
“It is obvious that the frivolous lawsuit filed against my firm is an aggressive attempt to intimidate or silence me and ultimately my clients,” Buzbee added in his statement. “The letters were sent seeking a confidential mediation in lieu of filing a lawsuit. No amount of money was included in the demand letters. No threats were made. The demand letters sent are no different than the ones routinely sent by lawyers across the country in all types of cases.”
One legal expert tells Rolling Stone that demand letters are very common and generally protected if they don’t explicitly threaten going to authorities to report alleged criminal conduct.
“You have a right to represent your client and demand that a potential defendant pay money to compensate your client. But you don’t have a right to say, ‘If you don’t pay, I’m going to report you to the authorities.’ I think that’s the really clear line. That’s civil extortion and not protected by the First Amendment,” Jeremy B. Rosen, an appellate lawyer and partner at Horvitz & Levy, says. “Here, if they’re just saying there are going to be more civil plaintiffs, that doesn’t strike me as the same as going to the authorities. It’s the whole notion of the risk of criminal punishment that pushes things over the edge.”
In October, Buzbee indicated that he planned to send demand letters to unidentified celebrities. “In every single case, especially cases like this… because it’s in the best interests of the victim, we attempt to resolve these matters without the filing of a public lawsuit. And we’ve done that already with a handful of individuals, many of which you’ve heard of before,” Buzbee told TMZ.
In the wake of the preemptive extortion lawsuit, Buzbee says his firm now will disclose demand letters when lawsuits are filed. The John Doe is being represented by powerhouse law firm Quinn Emanuel and is suing for civil extortion and infliction of emotional distress.
The unidentified celebrity’s new lawsuit is the latest wrinkle in the scandal surrounding Comb. The Bad Boy Entertainment founder was indicted and arrested in September and has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and transportation to engage in prostitution. The media mogul was arrested in New York City on Sept. 16 and has been detained since; he’s currently housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center, in Brooklyn.
Southern District of New York prosecutors claim that Combs used his billion-dollar empire as a “criminal enterprise” to commit a range of offenses including “sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.”
Although prosecutors didn’t directly name Combs’ ex-partner Casandra “Cassie” Ventura in the 14-page indictment against Combs, it was clear that she was “Victim 1,” with incidents alleged in her November 2023 civil lawsuit against Combs mirroring events detailed in the charging papers.
Combs’ family recently was forced to deny the existence of an alleged memoir from his late partner Kim Porter.
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