Lawyers for Hip Hop mogul, Sean “Diddy” Combs have pushed back against a woman’s lawsuit that accused him of sexual assault, filing a motion to dismiss some claims that were not under the law when the alleged incident occurred.
The motion filed on Friday in a New York court claims Combs cannot be sued because certain laws didn’t exist when Joi Dickerson-Deal made the allegations against him in 1991.
The music mogul’s lawyers want certain statutes from Dickerson-Deal’s claims such as revenge porn and human trafficking to be dismissed with prejudice.
In a filing last year, she said Combs “intentionally drugged” her then brought her home and sexually assaulted her after a date in Harlem when she was a 19-year-old college student.
Without her knowledge, Combs videotaped the assault and later shared it with several friends in the music industry, the suit alleges. He denied the allegations, accusing her of seeking to exploit the New York law that temporarily extended the statute of limitations.
Dickerson-Deal’s claim came nearly three decades after his alleged misconduct and the New York State Revenge Porn Law was not codified until 2019, Combs’ lawyers said.
His attorneys also pointed out a few others including the New York Services for Victims of Human Trafficking Law, which came into effect in 2007.
Last month, Combs’ properties in Los Angeles and Miami were raided by federal authorities in a sex trafficking investigation.
In a lawsuit Combs settled the day after it was filed in November, his former protege and girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, sued him alleging years of sexual abuse, including rape. The lawsuit said he forced her to have sex with male prostitutes while he filmed them.