A staggering $100 million defamation lawsuit that was filed against Sean Combs‘ accuser Thalia Graves by her alleged rapist was dismissed Monday, with a U.S. District Judge ruling the suit contained several “patently frivolous claims.”
Thalia Graves brought her suit against Combs and ex-bodyguard Joseph Sherman in September 2024, days after the hip-hop mogul was arrested and charged with sex trafficking and racketeering. She claimed that Combs and Sherman drugged her, bound her wrists, and raped her at Combs’ recording studio Daddy’s House in 2001. She also said they recorded the alleged rape, and later shared it and sold it as pornography.
Several weeks after Graves filed her suit, Sherman sued Graves and her attorney, Gloria Allred, for defamation, denying that he was the man who allegedly assaulted her and filmed the alleged attack. Sherman called Graves’ claim “utterly and entirely false,” alleging he stopped working for Combs in 1999 and had never even met Graves.
In dismissing Sherman’s suit, New York district judge Analisa Torres did not rule on the veracity of Graves’ assault allegations, or Sherman’s denial, but only whether Sherman could actually sue Graves for defamation. He could not, the judge ruled, because New York law “prohibits defamation claims arising out of statements made in litigation” if they’re relevant to the litigation. Torres added that “any allegedly defamatory statements made by Graves in her complaint are absolutely privileged.”
While Sherman also accused Graves of defamation over statements she made about him and her lawsuit in the press, Torres said Sherman’s own complaint failed to properly identify or list these purported media statements. Furthermore, direct messages Graves purportedly sent Sherman in 2023, allegedly trying to persuade him to serve as her witness against Combs, could not be considered defamation because they weren’t published to a third party. (A lawyer for Sherman did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment. In a statement, Allred called the lawsuit “frivolous” and applauded her and Graves’ attorneys Mariann Wang and Heather Gregorio for “vigorously and successfully” representing them.)
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Wang added in her own statement, “We are pleased that the Court swiftly rejected this frivolous and harassing lawsuit, and look forward to vindicating our client’s rights in her original, underlying lawsuit against Combs and Sherman.”
Along with dismissing the defamation claims, Torres tossed all the other allegations in Sherman’s complaint: Negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, vexatious litigation, abuse of process, and malicious prosecution.
“The complaint asserts at least five patently frivolous claims,” Torres wrote. “[T]he defamation claim is barred by an absolute privilege, the intentional infliction of emotional distress and abuse of process claims are premised upon conduct that does not support such claims, the vexatious litigation claim is not recognized under New York law, and the malicious prosecution claim is plainly premature.”
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Torres also agreed with a motion brought by Graves seeking sanctions against Sherman and his lawyer, who will now have to cover costs and attorneys’ fees incurred by the defendants while opposing his suit.
Graves’ sexual assault lawsuit against Combs and Sherman is still ongoing. (Combs filed a motion to dismiss in March.) Though like many of the other civil actions against Combs, it’s been put on hold amid his federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial.
