The legal team for JAY-Z have filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit that accuses him of raping a teenage girl.
According to Rolling Stone, the 55-year-old rapper (legal name Shawn Carter) filed a motion detailing inconsistencies in the Jane Doe accuser’s story of the night of the 2000 Video Music Awards. Cited is an interview Doe shared last month where she admitted to inaccuracies in her story, admitting “I have made some mistakes… I just hope I can give others the strength to come forward like I came forward.”
In the new motion, Jay-Z’s attorney Alex Spiro also moves to place a monetary sanction on the woman’s lawyer Tony Buzbee, claiming he moved forward with the claim without looking into its validity: “to sign a pleading accusing someone of such a horrific crime without adequately vetting the allegation — particularly when the defendant’s prominence means that the allegation will be repeated in headlines across the world — is deeply wrong and unethical. If lawyers do not face consequences for such a cavalier effort to destroy another person’s reputation and inflict emotional harm on his loved ones, that tactic will proliferate.”
The lawsuit was initially filed in October 2024 as a part of the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act in the Southern District of New York in October, where it only included disgraced mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs; it was amended in December to include JAY-Z. Said Spiro: “Mr. Carter has nothing to do with Mr. Combs’ case, or Mr. Combs. They knew each other professionally for a number of years. Just like in all professions, people know each other. At a music awards, they support each other. You go to the NBA All-Star game, they support each other. That’s just how professions work. There is no closer association between any of them. That’s also a matter of fiction. That’s all that there is, he doesn’t know anything about the charges or allegations against [Combs], he has nothing to do with that case. And there’s nothing more to say.”
However, the plaintiff’s attorney Tony Buzbee, told Rolling Stone that his client refuses to be “bullied or intimidated.” Buzbee said: “Mr. Spiro and his firm are paid by the hour. So, they file a lot of junk with the Court. With each frantic filing, his team reeks of desperation. He and his team think the laws and rules don’t apply to them. They are flat wrong. They also think they can bully or intimidate counsel for victims by filing meritless and frivolous pleadings full of lies and half-truths. Again, they are dead wrong… We will address the utter lack of merit with his filing with the Court, rather than with the press.”
Editorial credit: Tinseltown / Shutterstock.com
