Jay-Z wants evidence preserved in rape lawsuit as Tony Buzbee sues Roc Nation
Jay-Z's lawyer Alex Spiro says an NBC News interview with the accuser exposed her claims as a 'sham.'
The litigation battle between Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and plaintiff’s attorney Tony Buzbee escalated Wednesday as Buzbee accused Carter’s company and go-to law firm of pushing fraudulent lawsuits.
At the same time, Carter’s lawyer Alex Spiro says he’s concerned Buzbee will destroy evidence related to the rape lawsuit against Carter and jailed hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, which Spiro says was exposed as a “sham” when the accuser acknowledged inconsistencies in her story during an interview with NBC News on Friday.
Spiro wants a judge to order Buzbee to preserve all evidence, and he’s pointing to Buzbee’s “long history of abusing the legal process and shirking ethical responsibilities” as a sign he may destroy “evidence of his own misconduct.”
Spiro included with his motion three recent lawsuits against Buzbee from former clients accusing him of fraud.
The lawsuits are similar to the lawsuits that Buzbee alleges Carter’s team pursued against him by illegally offering clients money to sue. His new complaint against Roc Nation and Spiro’s law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, says Carter’s team offered to pay clients “to bring frivolous cases” and sometimes posed as state government workers and “flashed fake badges.”
“Unfortunately for the Defendants, their agents are not very smart, or careful,” according to a 14-page complaint filed in Harris County District Court in Texas. “Their agents were caught on audiotape, red handed.”
Buzbee said on Instagram Wednesday that the tactics were “specifically targeted at our firm so we would not pursue cases related to the Diddy litigation.”
“LET ME BE CLEAR: we will not be bullied or intimidated. The Defendants this time overstepped, got sloppy, and stupidly got caught at their illegal scheme on tape,” Buzbee wrote.
A Roc Nation spokesman called the lawsuit “baloney” and “nothing but another sham.”
“It’s a pathetic attempt to distract and deflect attention. This sideshow won’t change the ultimate outcome and true justice will be served soon,” according to the statement.
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan has not addressed Spiro’s request to shorten the time he must wait to file a motion to strike Buzbee’s claims against Carter, which allege he raped a 13-year-old girl with Combs after the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000.
Spiro filed a letter on Friday asking Torres to shorten the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure’s waiting period from 21 days to one day. The time is intended to give an opposing attorney the chance to withdraw the claims at issue.
Spiro told Torres the extraordinary exception he’s requesting is warranted “in light today’s stunning public disclosures and the severe ongoing harm to Mr. Carter’s reputation.”
Wednesday’s motion further details the accuser’s inconsistencies and says they “highlight severe misconduct by her counsel, Anthony Buzbee and The Buzbee Law Firm.”
“In an attempt to deflect from his own failures, he foists blame on another law firm, claiming the case was ‘vetted’ before it was sent to his firm,” Spiro wrote. “And so concerned is Buzbee that he is now having his client sit for a polygraph.”
The motion asks Torres to issue an order to show cause that would essentially order Buzbee to show why he shouldn’t be ordered to preserve evidence.
Spiro said such an order “is necessary to ensure that Mr. Carter has a full and fair opportunity to present his defense against Plaintiff’s fictitious claims.”
“That Buzbee is not admitted to this Court—and thus is apparently attempting to avoid its disciplinary authority—only underscores the pressing need for such an order,” Spiro wrote.
Spiro asked Judge Torres to hold a hearing at 9 a.m. on Thursday “or as soon thereafter as the Court deems appropriate.”
Torres, a 2013 Barack Obama appointee, had not yet acknowledged the filing as of late Wednesday. She also has not addressed Buzbee’s request for the plaintiff to proceed anonymously as Jane Doe, which Spiro opposed in his own motion, then request an expedited hearing about in another motion.
The judge had a scheduling conference in another civil case on Monday, according to the Southern District of New York’s public calendar, and she has a probation revocation hearing in a criminal case scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Thursday. On Friday, she has three sentencings and a change of plea scheduled as well as a status conference in a criminal case.
The lawsuit against Carter, a rapper and billionaire businessman, was initially filed on Oct. 20 against only Combs and his companies.
On Nov. 18, Quinn Emanuel lawyers sued Buzbee for extortion on behalf of a celebrity identified as John Doe and alleged he was threatening “to unleash entirely fabricated and malicious allegations of sexual assault — including multiple instances of rape of a minor, both male and female — against plaintiff.”
Buzbee signed an amended complaint on Dec. 8 that added Carter as a defendant and confirmed he was the John Doe in the extortion lawsuit. Spiro filed a motion the next day asking Judge Torres to reject Buzbee’s request for the plaintiff to proceed anonymously.
NBC News published an interview with the accuser on Friday about 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time in which she stood by her accusations but acknowledged “mistakes” in her recounting of what happened.
The lawsuit says the woman’s father picked her up in New York City, but he said he doesn’t remember making the five-hour drive from the family’s home in Rochester, and “I feel like I would remember that.” The friend who the woman said drove her to the Video Music Awards is dead, and a musician she said she met, Benji Madden, says he wasn’t in New York that night.
“Photos from the night in question show Mr. Combs and Ms. Jennifer Lopez at both Lotus and Twirl, clubs in New York,” Spiro wrote in Wednesday’s motion. “NBC reported that photos separately show that Mr. Carter was at Lotus following the VMAs. Taken together, the factual inconsistencies, timeline impossibilities, and the lack of corroborating evidence make Plaintiff’s allegations in the [first amended complaint] wholly unreliable.”
Spiro told Judge Torres that Buzbee appears to be trying to avoid possible sanctions by not filing a notice of appearance in the case.
Buzbee is licensed in Texas and has a New York lawyer filing his lawsuits against Combs — Antigone Curis, who’s been licensed in New York since 1997. She filed a notice of appearance in the lawsuit against Carter, but Buzbee has not. [Update: Buzbee is licensed in New York state but not admitted in the federal Southern District of New York.]
Buzbee, meanwhile, filed with his new lawsuit transcripts of conversations he said clients recorded with investigators representing Carter and Roc Nation.
Buzbee also included an affidavit from a Louisiana woman, Shannon Champagne, who said three men “from the New York area” visited her home “on multiple occasions” to discuss her joining a class action lawsuit against the Buzbee Law Firm.
“These men offered me money to sign on as a client with them. Specifically, they offered me $10,000 in exchange for signing with them as a client,” Champagne wrote.
Another client, Skylar Taylor, also said in an affidavit that three men from “the New York area” visited his grandmother’s home multiple times to try to convince him to sue Buzbee’s law firm.
“These men offered me money to sign on as a client with them. These men stated that they and/or the attorney that hired them paid a former client of the Buzbee Law Firm $1,000 to sign on with them as a client and sue the Buzbee Law Firm,” according to the affidavit.
The plaintiff is Gerardo Garcia, who hired Buzbee’s firm to represent him in a maritime injury case. The case settled in 2020 and Garcia “was happy with the resolution of his case, and had no complaints with the Buzbee Law Firm.”
Recently, two investigators questioned Garcia abut the settlement and said there was “money in this for you” if he sued Buzbee. One of the investigators identified herself as Jessica Santiago and said she was working for Marcy Croft, an attorney in Jackson, Mississippi, who has worked with Roc Nation.
Croft and Santiago are defendants alongside Roc Nation and Quinn Emanuel. The lawsuit has two causes of action: barratry/solicitation, civil conspiracy and punitive damages.
The case Buzbee’s firm worked for Garcia is similar to a case at the center of a fraud lawsuit against Buzbee that Spiro cited in Wednesday’s motion.
Lawyers at Buzbee’s firm told injured ship captain Adam Guidary his case was worth $1 million “but later coerced him into settling for less than one-third of that amount,” according to a federal complaint filed Friday in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Guidary received $5,123.19 after Buzbee’s firm took $53,000 in fees and $266,876.81 in expenses, according to the complaint. The firm also charged Guidary $23,571.51 for “interest” on $85,450 describes as “loans.”
Guidary is represented by Kelley Berry of Berry & Munn, P.A., and Tim Porter of Porter & Malouf, P.A.
Croft is not an attorney on the case, but Buzbee said in his lawsuit against her and Roc Nation that he’ll seek disciplinary action “against the law firms who accepted referrals of the cases from Defendant Marcy Croft.” He also said the lawsuits filed so far are part of a scheme and “utterly frivolous and patently false.”
Court documents:
Nov. 18 extortion lawsuit against Buzbee
Dec. 8 amended complaint naming Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter
Dec. 8 request to proceed anonyously
Dec. 9 opposition to anonymity
Dec. 9 letter requesting expedited hearing
Dec. 13 Spiro’s letter about NBC News article
Dec. 18 motion for order to show cause
Dec. 18 Buzbee’s lawsuit against Roc Nation and Quinn Emanuel
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