Judge won't strike rape claim against Jay-Z, says plaintiff can proceed anonymously
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres called attorney Alex Spiro's 'relentless filing of combative motions' 'a tactic unlikely to benefit his client.'
A judge on Thursday said the woman accusing Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter of raping her in 2000 can proceed anonymously “at least for this stage of the ligation,” and she said his lawyer’s “litany of letters and motions” wrongly attempt to “impugn the character” of plaintiff’s lawyer Tony Buzbee.
“Carter’s lawyer’s relentless filing of combative motions containing inflammatory language and ad hominem attacks is inappropriate, a waste of judicial resources, and a tactic unlikely to benefit his client. The Court will not fast-track the judicial process merely because counsel demands it,” U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres wrote.
The order rejects Alex Spiro’s motion to strike the amended complaint naming Carter as a codefendant with jailed hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs and his companies, and it rejects his request to shorten the waiting period for filing a sanctions motion from 21 days to one day. It also calls his violation of court rules “unacceptable” and says the judge may deny his motions solely for violating rules if he does so again.
Torres said the case is in an “exceedingly early stage,” and she “intends to revisit this decision at a future date” “because the balance of these factors will certainly shift as this case proceeds, especially if and when the parties engage in discovery in earnest.”
“Here, the weight of the factors tips in favor of allowing Plaintiff to remain anonymous, at least for this stage of the litigation,” Torres wrote.
Torres did not rule on Spiro’s emergency request that she order Buzbee to preserve evidence related to the lawsuit. Instead, she gave Buzbee’s team, which includes New York City lawyer Antigone Curis, until Jan. 10 to respond, then Spiro until Jan. 17 to reply.
The order comes as Spiro’s partners at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP pursue a new defamation claim against Buzbee, who stood by his lawsuit in a recent filing that said discrepancies in the accuser’s interview with NBC News are “run-of-the-mill disputes of fact” that don’t warrant summary judgment in Carter’s favor, “much less” sanctions against Buzbee.
Spiro detailed problems in the woman’s account of what happened in a presentation to reporters at Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation’s New York City office.
Here’s a video synopsis of what he said:
In his letter to Judge Torres, Buzbee called Spiro’s sanctions threat “just one more instance of bullying, intended to have a chilling effect on Plaintiff, Plaintiff’s counsel, and any potential plaintiffs watching these proceedings.”
Quinn partners Michael T. Lifrak and Mari Henderson amended their extortion lawsuit against Buzbee on Dec. 20 to include a defamation claim for statements they say amplified false accusations, beginning in October with “then-veiled threats” that didn’t directly name Carter.
The complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, says the defamatory statements include Buzbee calling his client a “sexual assault survivor” and saying he may file a criminal complaint against Carter. It also alleges Buzbee’s “liking” of a post that Jay-Z is guilty “amplified and republished defamatory insinuations” and supports the defamation claim.
Likes on X are no longer public, but the complaint wrongly states otherwise. It also includes a screenshot of the post’s author sharing a screenshot showing Buzbee liked her post.
The lawsuit also alleges Buzbee defamed Carter when he wrote on X that his client “is emboldened.”
“By saying that his client was ‘emboldened,’ Buzbee underscored his intent to position his client as credible and determined to pursue a criminal prosecution against Plaintiff, even though he knew or should have known that the allegations were false,” according to the complaint.
The complaint says Buzbee defamed Carter “per se,” which means his statements are harmful on their face, and “per quod,” meaning his statements are harmful when considered with other information. It cites the accuser’s NBC News interview, Buzbee’s statement to journalist Stephen A. Smith that “a lot of this is hard to corroborate” as well as statements to Chris Hansen, Shaun Atwood and Piers Morgan.
“After the NBC News article revealed inconsistencies in the allegations and Buzbee’s failure to investigate his client’s claims, Defendants should have retracted their false statements about Mr. Carter,” according to the amended complaint. “Instead, Buzbee escalated his campaign by threatening a criminal prosecution against Mr. Carter.”
The lawsuit won’t be in court any time soon: A case management conference is scheduled May 16 before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark H. Epstein in Santa Monica.
In his Dec. 20 letter, Buzbee told Judge Torres that Carter “twists Plaintiff’s words when he accuses her, for instance, of ‘guessing’ at the timing of events alleged in the complaint, such as the length of car rides.”
“But New York courts have expressly acknowledged that plaintiffs in this type of case cannot be expected to have exacting recall and command of all relevant facts,” Buzbee wrote, citing a 2021 appellate court ruling that approved allegations said to have occurred somewhere in a four-year window.
Buzbee said Carter’s lawyers “have shrilly maintained an entitlement to different rules and faster procedures.”
“In each instance the goal has been to blur the facts and rush a decision. But there is aggressive advocacy and then there is bad faith. Mr. Carter’s latest tactics, much like his open threat to refer Plaintiff’s attorneys for disciplinary action, cross that line,” according to the letter.
Buzbee also said some of Spiro’s Dec. 13 filing “includes a substantial amount of defamatory suggestions about me, including that I am somehow attempting to ‘circumvent the authority of this Court to enforce Rule 11’ against me.”
“That is nonsense. I am a member of the State Bar of New York and am admitted to the Eastern District of New York. I intend to apply for reciprocal admission to the Southern District. The fact that I have signed pleadings and letters filed in this Court does not reflect any attempt by me to ‘evade’ responsibility for anything. To the contrary, I have signed those pleadings and papers because I am lead counsel
in this and other similar cases pending in this District,” Buzbee wrote.
Torres is a Harvard College and Columbia Law School graduate who was a judge in city and state criminal and civil courts before the U.S. Senate approved Barack Obama’s appointment of her to the federal bench in 2013. She’s also the granddaughter of the late Judge Felipe Torres, who was the first Puerto Rican judge on New York State Family Court and the first Puerto Rican from the Bronx elected to the New York State Assembly.
Her notable rulings include her dismissal of a criminal indictment in 2021 because she said the defendant’s lawyers presented “clear statistical evidence” to show that Black and Hispanic persons were underrepresented in the area where prosecutors chose to bring the case to a grand jury.
Her order on Thursday' is the first time she’s weighed in on Buzbee’s case since she authorized the plaintiff to proceed anonymously in November, when the lawsuit was against only Combs and his companies.
Buzbee filed the amended complaint on Dec. 8, nearly three weeks after Carter sued him for extortion in L.A. Superior Court under the pseudonym John Doe. Meanwhile, he’s also suing Roc Nation and the Quinn law firm for allegedly pushing fraudulent litigation by offering to pay past and former clients to bring claims against him.
Spiro filed a motion on Dec. 9 asking Judge Torres to deny Buzbee’s request for the plaintiff to proceed anonymously in the new complaint. He had a recent case on his side: Torres’ colleague U.S. District Judge Jessica G.L. Clarke ruled on Feb. 29 that a woman who accuses Combs of raping her in 2003 when she was 17 can’t proceed anonymously.
In that case, Combs’ lawyers knew who the woman was before she was publicly identified because they warned in a filling that she has a “public-facing identity” and some details could lead to others identifying her. In Carter’s case, Spiro apparently does not know the identity of the woman because he told Judge Torres in a Dec. 23 filing that the identity of the woman’s father “is presently unknown to Mr. Carter due to Plaintiff’s use of a pseudonym.”
Torres cited Judge Clarke’s order when acknowledging that “several factors weigh against allowing Plaintiff to proceed anonymously,” including the fact that she is challenging the actions of private parties. Torres said the woman’s “continued anonymity may cause prejudice to Defendants, making it more difficult for them to collect the facts necessary to mount a defense and, as appropriate, challenge Plaintiff’s credibility.”
“The Court does not take such prejudice lightly,” Torres wrote. “Nevertheless, at this exceedingly early stage in this case, the factors counseling against disclosure outweigh those that counsel in favor.”
The judge said four factors “weigh strongly in favor of anonymity”:
whether the litigation involves matters that are highly sensitive and of a personal nature
whether identification poses a risk of retaliatory physical or mental harm to the party seeking to proceed anonymously or even more critically, to innocent non-parties
whether the plaintiff is particularly vulnerable to the possible harms of disclosure, particularly in light of h[er] age
whether the plaintiff’s identity has thus far been kept confidential
Torres cited Buzbee’s statement “that many of his other clients who have filed similar lawsuits against Sean Combs claim to have been threatened by Mr. Combs for their decision to speak out.”
“And finally, although Plaintiff sat for an interview with NBC News concerning her case, NBC allowed her to conduct the interview anonymously,” Torres said.
Torres then took issue with Spiro’s claiming that Buzbee has a “chronic inability to follow the rules” when Spiro “has failed to abide by this Court’s clear rules” regarding pre-motion letters and a five-day response period, wait for a briefing schedule or state why an exception was warranted.
“This is unacceptable. Counsel is hereby advised that any further motions filed in violation of the Court’s Individual Practices may be denied on that ground alone,” according to the order.
The judge said in a footnote the motion to strike was denied “on the merits.” Spiro brought the motion under Rule 12(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which allows a judge to “strike from a pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter.”
“Motions to strike under Rule 12(f) ‘are generally disfavored’ and will be granted ‘only if there is strong reason to do so,’” Torres wrote, quoting a 2022 Southern District of New York case. “Carter’s motion, which summarily asserts that Plaintiff’s claims are ‘baseless’ and ‘salacious,’ does not clear that high bar.”
I made the point on YouTube tonight that public opinion over this lawsuit is probably not actually swinging back and forth from filing to filing, at least not for the wider masses and especially not around the holidays.
I also made the point that as worrisome as this lawsuit must be for the Jay-Z, another similar lawsuit made it all the way to discovery and depositions, went to trial and a jury found the defendant liable and awarded the plaintiff damages, and then the defendant was elected president of the United States.
At this point, Jay-Z’s own filings have probably done more to attract attention to the lawsuit than anything else, at least outside insular social media circles.
Court documents:
Dec. 23 opposition to anonymity
Dec. 20 Buzbee’s letter to Judge Torres
Dec. 20 amended complaint against Buzbee
Dec. 18 emergency request for order to show cause re: preservation of evidence
Dec. 18 Buzbee’s lawsuit against Roc Nation and Quinn Emanuel
Dec. 13 Spiro’s letter about NBC News article
Dec. 9 opposition to anonymity
Dec. 8 request to proceed anonyously
Dec. 8 amended complaint naming Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter
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