Sean Combs has filed his first official challenge to claims he “gang raped” a 17-year-old girl at his Manhattan recording studio in 2003. In new court paperwork submitted Tuesday, Combs refuted accusations that he, his longtime lieutenant Harve Pierre and a third unidentified man trafficked the teen across state lines, plied her with “copious amounts of drugs and alcohol” and took turns raping her in a bathroom of his Daddy’s House Recording Studio.
“(Combs) never participated in, witnessed, or was or is presently aware of any misconduct, sexual or otherwise, relating to plaintiff in any circumstance whatsoever,” Combs’ 11-page answer filed in the Southern District of New York reads.
He then complained about the timing of the lawsuit and challenged the veracity of the color photographs included in the complaint. One of the photos allegedly shows the teen sitting on Combs’ lap inside Daddy’s House. “The context, genuineness, and/or accuracy of the photographs are disputed,” his answer states. “Plaintiff’s decision to wait more than two decades to file her complaint has prejudiced defendant, as he has lost the ability to defend himself fully and fairly in this action,” he says. “For example, some or all evidence that otherwise would have been available if the action had been promptly commenced may be unavailable, lost, or compromised.” Combs and his lawyers further argue the lawsuit should be barred because the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Act (GMVA) under which is was brought is purportedly “unconstitutional.”
“Allowing this action to proceed violates defendant’s rights under the U.S. Constitution and the New York State Constitution,” the answer from Combs’ legal team, which recently added two new high-profile female lawyers, states. (The new lawyers are Bobbi C. Sternheim, known for defending Jeffrey Epstein’s collaborator Ghislaine Maxwell at trial, and Shawn Holley, who represented former Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer in an arbitration that got him reinstated with Major League Baseball after sexual assault allegations.)
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Pierre, also named as a co-defendant in the case, filed his own answer Tuesday saying he “never participated in the sexual assault of the plaintiff nor did he ever witness anyone else sexually assaulting the plaintiff.” Combs’ company, Bad Boy Entertainment, responded with a motion to dismiss, arguing that any language expanding the scope of the GMVA to corporate defendants wasn’t added until 2022, and “there is no basis to find that this amendment operates retroactively.”
The Jane Doe behind the allegations was the fourth woman to step forward in recent months and file a lawsuit accusing Combs of sexual assault. R&B singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura brought the first allegations in a bombshell Nov. 16 complaint that accused Combs of serial sexual assault and trafficking. Cassie alleged Combs raped her, brutally beat her and forced her to participate in drug-fueled sex with other men while he watched. (She and Combs announced a private settlement one day after she filed her lawsuit.)
Two more accusers filed lawsuits on Thanksgiving Day. One alleged Combs drugged and sexually assaulted her and then showed video of the assault to others. The other woman alleged Combs and singer Aaron Hall took turns raping her and her friend in the early Nineties.
Combs denied the range of allegations in a statement issued shortly after the Dec. 6 lawsuit from the fourth accuser was first reported by Rolling Stone. “Enough is enough. For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth,” Combs said.
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The Dec. 6 lawsuit alleges that Pierre met Doe in a Detroit lounge and arranged for a private jet to fly her to Combs’ Daddy’s House Recording Studio that night. The filing claims that the teen was fed a “copious” amount of intoxicants as Combs, Pierre, and the third man hit on her “incessantly” and groped her.
As the teen became so inebriated that everything started to “blur,” the suit alleges, Combs allegedly led her to a bathroom and raped Doe. “Ms. Doe did not consent to having sex with Mr. Combs, but he continued thrusting.” The lawsuit alleges the teen was slipping in and out of consciousness when she looked up and realized an unidentified man had replaced Combs and was now raping her. According to the filing, Combs was watching the assault from a chair just outside the bathroom.
Doe alleges the unidentified man ignored her pleas to stop but eventually turned her over to Pierre, who she says subjected her to “nonconsensual vaginal sex” before “violently forcing her to give him oral sex.” “When Mr. Pierre finished, he left Ms. Doe in the bathroom alone,” the lawsuit states. “Ms. Doe fell into the fetal position and lay on the floor. Her vagina was in pain.”
Once the teen “regained her bearings” enough to walk with some assistance, she was taken back to the airport and flown back to Michigan, the lawsuit said. Doe alleges that she has “very limited recollection” of the return flight and “only remembers being in her car sometime early in the morning.”
Leading #MeToo attorney Douglas Wigdor represents both Cassie and the Jane Doe plaintiff. In the Dec. 6 complaint, he wrote that once Cassie stepped forward and had her allegations corroborated by others, she realized that “she too had been sex trafficked and that Mr. Combs’ behavior in forcing women into nonconsensual sex was not an isolated incident or unique only to Ms. Ventura.”
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In a statement to Rolling Stone, Wigdor said Combs, Pierre, and the third unidentified defendant “preyed on a vulnerable high school teenager as part of a sex trafficking scheme that involved plying her with alcohol and transporting her by private jet to New York City where she was gang raped.” He said the “depravity of these abhorrent acts” had “scarred Doe for life.”
Combs, 54, has been keeping a low profile since the wave of allegations broke. He stepped down from the chairmanship of his media company, Revolt, as businesses fled his e-commerce platform and liquor giant Diageo sought to distance itself further before parting ways for good in a settlement announced last month. He also was absent from the Grammy Awards two weeks ago amid controversy over his nomination for Best Progressive R&B album for the 2023 project The Love Album: Off The Grid.