Sean 'Diddy' Combs asks Lenawee County court to set aside $100 million default judgment

ADRIAN — Sean "Diddy" Combs has asked a Lenawee County court to set aside the $100 million judgment it granted in a Michigan inmate's lawsuit claiming the hip-hop mogul sexually assaulted him in 1997 in an Adrian hotel.

Combs has also asked that the temporary restraining order Circuit Judge Anna Marie Anzalone granted to inmate Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith be dissolved. Anzalone granted the temporary restraining order barring Combs from selling any of his real estate or personal property for 90 days. Cardello-Smith argued that the order was necessary to prevent Combs from selling assets that could be used to pay any financial award from his lawsuit.

A hearing has been scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday, Sept. 16, before Circuit Judge Anna Marie Anzalone to consider the request filed Friday by Combs' Bloomfield Hills-based attorneys from the Fink Bressack firm.

The $10 million monthly payments are due to begin Oct. 1, according to the schedule set by Anzalone.

In the filings, Combs argues that he was never served with the lawsuit and did not learn about it until the default judgment made national news on Sept. 9. Cardello-Smith included a certified mail return receipt that appeared to show that the lawsuit was delivered to a Los Angeles estate associated with Combs. However, Combs argues, he lives in Miami, the Los Angeles address is not his primary residence, the signature on the return receipt is not his, and no one was authorized to sign for any mail for him.

The date of delivery on the return receipt also appears to be July 6, 2021, the attorneys write, while Cardello-Smith claims to have mailed it on May 31, 2024.

When Anzalone reviewed the documentation before granting the temporary restraining order, she paused when looking at the certified mail return receipt and reading the delivery date. The last digit in the year is unclear.

The judgment should be set aside, Combs' attorneys argue, because even if it had been properly served, he has meritorious defenses. The brief says after he learned of the "astronomically high" default judgment, he promptly contacted legal counsel in Michigan and diligently moved to have the judgment set aside. Other defenses include Cardello-Smith's "facially implausible and incoherent allegations are totally made up, and that the decades-old claims are absolutely barred by the statute of limitation."

Combs' motion to dissolve the temporary restraining order calls Cardello-Smith's allegations "a frivolous lawsuit against a prominent businessman, based on obvious fabrications, filed by a convicted rapist and serial litigant with an overactive imagination and a thirst for fame."

Cardello-Smith is serving to up to 75 years in prison after being sentenced in 2008 in Wayne County on first-degree criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping charges after he pleaded no contest to the charges, according to Michigan Department of Corrections records. In 2019, he was sentenced to up to 35 years on four more first-degree criminal sexual conduct charges in Wayne County to which he also pleaded no contest. Those four newer charges were from offenses that took place in 1997. The original eight charges were committed in 2008. He also was convicted in 1998 of two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct in 1998 in Wayne County for offenses that took place in 1997 and 1998. Those sentences ended in 2013. On the active charges, the earliest date he could be released from prison is in 2036.

He has filed several lawsuits against a variety of defendants, including one against the Archdiocese of Detroit claiming he was sexually abused by a priest between 1979 and 1993 when he was between the ages of 6 or 7 and 20 or 21. The lawsuit was dismissed by a Wayne County judge. When Cardello-Smith appealed, the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal, saying the statute of limitations for him to file a lawsuit had lapsed.

Cardello-Smith's allegations against Combs state that he met the rapper in June 1997 while working at a restaurant in Detroit's Greektown. He states in his lawsuit that Combs invited him to a party with several women and others at a hotel in Adrian. During the party, according to Cardello-Smith, Combs gave him a drink that had been altered with something that made him pass out. When he came to, he claims, Combs told him he had had anal sex with him.

Cardello-Smith claims he reported the assault to Adrian police, but in a alleged coverup involving an Adrian police officer, high-ranking Wayne County officials, Detroit police and others, he agreed to go to prison for sexual assaults allegedly committed by Combs in order to protect his family from harm by Combs or people in law enforcement.

There is no record of Cardello-Smith or Combs in the Adrian Police Department's records, Deputy Police Chief Larry Van Alstine said in an email.

The signature of the Adrian officer who Cardello-Smith claims was part of the coverup appears on a signature page of the alleged agreement, but former Adrian Police Chief Terry Collins reviewed the signature and said it is not the officer's. The officer retired from the department in 1997 and died this past August.

On the same day Cardello-Smith filed his Lenawee County lawsuit against Combs, he filed almost the exact same lawsuit in Monroe County Circuit Court, except he says the assault took place in a hotel in Monroe. In the Lenawee County claim, the city is whited out, but in other documentation Cardello-Smith says the assault happened in Adrian and that he was living in Detroit and Adrian at the time. Both complaints say Monroe and Detroit police were part of the alleged coverup, but the hand-written agreement included with the Lenawee County case implicates Adrian police and the Lenawee County Sheriff's Office.

Combs faces several sexual misconduct allegations, including an accusation of rape that was settled out of court. Cardello-Smith claims the alleged coverup agreement gives him rights to 49% of all of Combs' business interests if Combs violates any part of the agreement by committing acts of sexual violence.

— Contact reporter David Panian at [email protected] or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Sean 'Diddy' Combs asks Michigan court to set aside default judgment