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JAY-Z's attorney has accused lawyer Tony Buzbee of trying to extort the veteran MC in a new filing that calls for Jane Doe's lawsuit to be thrown out.
According to a report TMZ published on Wednesday, December 18, Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel filed a new motion to dismiss the lawsuit against Shawn "JAY-Z" Carter and Sean "Diddy" Combs." In the newly filed court documents, Spiro accused Buzbee of alleged misconduct claiming the attorney for dozens of alleged victims tried to get money out of Hov. After he failed, Buzbee sued the rapper and amended Jane Doe's lawsuit to reveal his identity.
In the lawsuit, Jane Doe accused Carter and Combs of raping her when she was 13 at an after-party following the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000. A new report from NBC News identified several holes in Jane Doe's story including both rappers' locations at the time of the alleged attack and her father's failure to remember picking her up at the gas station she claimed to have called him from. Jane Doe's father said his family lived five hours away from New York City and would've remembered making a trip like that to rescue his daughter.
Following NBC News' report, Spiro provided a group of journalists with a breakdown that further dissects the claims in Jane Doe's lawsuit. In the 35-page document, JAY-Z's legal team disputes Doe's claims that she was driven 20 minutes away from Radio City Music Hall to a large white home with a u-shaped driveway. They argue that no such home exists within a 20-minute radius of the venue. They also noted several changes to the alleged victim's story.
She originally claimed she was picked up by the limo driver around 9:30 p.m. - 10 p.m. but in the amended lawsuit she said the driver had to drive Combs and others to the party first and that she "waited for what seemed to her a long time. Spiro argued Buzbee did the bare minimum to fact-check his client's story and put the blame on associates from his firm. Buzbee responded to the allegations and argued JAY-Z's legal team are "really reaching, to the point of being ridiculous."
"They are now asking the court to dismiss because I was supposedly 'admonished' during my defense of a client in a double murder case in LA?" Buzbee told TMZ. "Is that how the case will be decided — based on some allegations from another unrelated case several years ago? If so, should we then examine and determine how many times Quinn Emanuel has been 'admonished?' Or maybe we should look at the current conduct of defense counsel, who has flouted the rules and knows that people working on his client’s behalf are paying investigators to sue my law firm? These people keep going to new lows and have a lot of nerve to be throwing around reckless and baseless accusations."
Spiro also requested a preservation order to ensure evidence wouldn't be destroyed and for the court to remove the complaint against JAY-Z.