A Houston personal-injury attorney states that his law firm is currently representing 120 individuals who alleged they were victimized by Sean “Diddy†Combs. Read on for the latest on this new slate of lawsuits against Diddy, including the gag order Diddy’s defense has requested for his criminal trial, allegations from a then-10-year-old, and one Jane Doe losing her right to anonymity.
“Many powerful people will be exposedâ€
October 1, 2024: Tony Buzbee held a press conference on October 1 stating that he plans to continue to investigate allegations of sexual assault brought to him and to file individual cases on his clients’ behalf against Combs and others who may have facilitated or participated in any alleged assaults within the next 30 days.
“We’re going to follow this evidence wherever it takes us and find the silent accomplices, the enablers [who] enabled this conduct behind closed doors,†Buzzbee said at the press conference. “The wall of silence has now been broken and victims are coming forward.â€
Buzbee, who is licensed in Texas and New York, said his law firm, the Buzbee Law Firm, received more than 3,200 calls from individuals regarding Combs. After vetting the individual claims through medical reports and other corroborating evidence, he is now preparing to file 120 individual lawsuits against Combs. He said the alleged assaults reported to him span more than three decades, from 1991 to 2024.
Buzbee said that 25 of the alleged victims were minors at the time of the alleged assaults, including alleged victims as young as 9, 14, and 15 years old. While he did not provide exact details on the alleged individual assaults, Buzbee did breakdown the demographics of his clients. He said the 120 alleged victims were split evenly in gender — 60 were males and 60 were females — and 62 percent were Black, 30 percent white, and the remaining Hispanic or of other demographics. The majority of the alleged victims were from California, Georgia, and Florida, and the majority filed reports to the police or to a hospital after they had been assaulted. He also said to the extent the alleged victims feel comfortable that they will be made available to the authorities, and specifically to the FBI.
“Most of these people are scared,†Buzbee said. “They fear backlash … and retaliations from the perpetrators.â€
In talking to the victims, Buzbee said his firm noticed a pattern where the alleged victim was given a laced drink — which in several cases he alleged was a type of horse tranquilizer — and then passed out for perpetrators to perform sexual acts without consent while other people watched. Buzbeee said he intends on behalf of the alleged victims to pursue claims of violent sexual assault, facilitated sexual with a controlled substance, false imprisonment, sexual misconduct, and dissemination of video recording, among other claims.
In addition to Combs, Buzbee said his firm intends to go after his “silent accomplices†and the “cowardly bystanders who watched and egged the assaults on, the facilitators and the corporate entities that profited off the behavior.â€
“Many powerful people will be exposed,†Buzbee said. “Many dirty secrets will be revealed.â€
However, Combs’s attorney Erica Wolff issued a statement saying that her client “categorically denies as false and defamatory†the claims being made against him.
“As Mr. Combs’ legal team has emphasized, he cannot address every meritless allegation in what has become a reckless media circus,†Wolff said in a statement sent to Vulture. “That said, Mr. Combs emphatically and categorically denies as false and defamatory any claim that he sexually abused anyone, including minors. He looks forward to proving his innocence and vindicating himself in court, where the truth will be established based on evidence, not speculation.â€
The first 6 complaints
October 14: Tony Buzbee has filed his first six complaints against Sean “Diddy†Combs. Per Rolling Stone, they are on behalf of two Jane Does and four John Does. All six claim Diddy sexually assaulted them. All 6 suits were filed in the Southern District of New York.
One John Doe says Diddy assaulted him when he was 16, after being invited to one of his famous white parties. According to the filing, Diddy bumped into Doe at his 1998 Hamptons event. They took a picture together (included in the filing), then went to a private area ostensibly to discuss the music industry. Combs allegedly told John Doe to drop his pants, and asked “don’t you want to break into the business?†Diddy then allegedly squeezed the Doe’s genitals, concluding by saying his “people would be in touch.†This is the first accusation against Diddy from a man who was a minor at the time.
Diddy’s criminal defense requests gag order
October 20, 2024: Tony Buzbee has filed five more lawsuits against Sean “Diddy†Combs. According to Rolling Stone, Buzbee plans on filing seven lawsuits total this week, including three from people who claim they were assaulted by Diddy as recently as 2022. On the same day, Diddy’s criminal defense team filed a request for a gag order that would “further extrajudicial statements from prospective witnesses and their lawyers that substantially interfere with Mr. Combs’s right to a fair trial.†The request calls Buzbee and other lawyers’ statements to the press “shockingly prejudicial.†Last Tuesday, his lawyers also asked a federal judge to reveal the names of his accusers in his criminal case, in order to determine overlap between them and his many, many civil lawsuits.
Latest lawsuit is from a 10-year-old
October 28: Diddy continues to face new sexual-assault claims from victims represented by Tony Buzbee. The latest plaintiff was a 10-year-old aspiring rapper when he says Diddy drugged and raped him, per Rolling Stone. The John Doe is claiming his parents took him to New York City in 2005 to audition for Diddy, and that he met the mogul alone in a Manhattan hotel room. There, he says Diddy gave him a soda he believes was drugged and forced him to perform oral sex. He alleges he later passed out and woke up feeling pain in his anus and with his pants undone. The Doe says he later told his parents, who were terrified of the potential consequences of reporting the abuse, per the lawsuit.
Diddy’s lawyers denied the claims to Rolling Stone while adding that he “cannot respond to every new publicity stunt, even in response to claims that are facially ridiculous or demonstrably false.†They also said Buzbee “is interested in media attention rather than the truth.â€
One Jane Doe loses anonymity
October 30: One of the Jane Does represented by Tony Buzbee has lost the right to anonymity, “Page Six†reports. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil ruled that this Jane Doe must reveal her identity or her lawsuit will be dismissed. While the ruling acknowledges “an interest in keeping her identity private given the sensitive nature of her allegations,†Judge Vyskocil said she “has not carried her burden to show that she is entitled to†anonymity. The ruling cites the fact that the alleged assault took place “approximately 20 years ago†as a reason to deny her anonymity, “and, further, accuses a number of businesses of complicity in that alleged conduct.†Buzbee and Jane Doe have until November 13 to refile with her name attached. The incident in question reportedly took place in 2004. Jane Doe claims she and her friend were locked in a hotel room with Diddy after being invited to an after-party by his associates. The complaint says Combs sexually assaulted and threatened to kill her and her friend if they did not comply.