Rap and fashion mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs filed a motion Monday to dismiss an explosive civil lawsuit filed by Lil Rod, who accused Combs of grooming him and exposing him to multiple crimes, including drug trafficking, sexual assault and serving him drug-laced cocktails at his infamous parties.
The motion in the civil case Rodney Jones v. Sean Combs was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by defendants Sean Combs, Love Records, Inc., and Combs Global. Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. is also a defendant in the case, as is Universal Music boss Lucian GraingeIt, along with several other high-powered executives. The motion seeks to dismiss with prejudice the second amended complaint filed in February, arguing that Jones is simply seeking unpaid income from his work with Diddy and that his attorney is fanning the flames of the controversy from behind the scenes.
In 2022, Rodney Jones Jr., the musician and producer known as Lil Rod, was hired by Combs to work on his 2023 album, The Love Album: Off the GridDiddy’s first studio album since 2006. For over a year, Jones says he spent time living with Diddy in three different homes and experienced and witnessed multiple salacious events that included him being sexually assaulted, being forced by Combs to perform sexual acts, being forced to solicit prostitutes, being drugged, humiliated, and repeatedly groped in the anus and genitals by Gooding while in Diddy’s orbit.
Jones’s case was dismissed on Feb. 26 in New York federal court, and he is seeking $30 million in damages. In amended filings, which came shortly after the complaint was initially filed, Jones added further detail, alleging that there was a “RICO enterprise” that repeatedly “failed to adequately monitor, warn, or supervise” Combs while Jones was being abused by him. The claims sent shockwaves through the hip-hop world and sparked a cottage industry of speculation about what may or may not be going on behind the gates of Diddy’s mansions and at his supposedly hedonistic parties.
On Monday, that claim was formally countered in a complaint filed by Sher Tremonte, a Manhattan-based law firm.
“Mr. Jones' lawsuit is pure fiction, a shameless attempt to create media hype and obtain a quick settlement,” Combs' attorney, Erica Wolff, said in a statement Monday. “There was no RICO conspiracy and Mr. Jones was not threatened, solicited, assaulted or trafficked. We look forward to proving, in a court of law, that all of Mr. Jones' claims are fabricated and must be dismissed.”
The motion calls Jones’ second amended complaint “his third attempt to disguise a common business disagreement as a salacious RICO conspiracy” and that the 100-page filing from earlier this year includes “countless fantastic stories, shameless celebrity names and irrelevant images.” It says Jones’ assault complaint falls flat on its face in terms of basic facts, such as where and when it allegedly occurred.
The motion continues: “Yet, for all its hyperbole and murky theatrics, the Second Amended Complaint fails to state a single valid claim against any of Combs's defendants. Filled with legally nonsensical allegations and blatant falsehoods, the SAC's true purpose is to generate media hype and exploit it to extort a settlement.”
In the motion, Sher Tremonte's attorneys characterize what they allege are false allegations and lies in the complaint as the work of plaintiff's attorney Tyrone Blackburn, of Brooklyn, whom they accuse of pursuing wealthy clients to embarrass them and get a quick payday. The allegations surrounding Combs, they say, “are not surprising” and raise the fact that Blackburn was recently referred to this court's Grievance Committee for engaging in an alleged scheme of “improperly fil[ing] cases in federal court to attract media attention, embarrass defendants with salacious allegations, and pressure defendants to settle quickly.”
The lawyers then attack Jones' credibility, claiming that he took “a page out of his lawyer's playbook” by posting a video on X (formerly Twitter) in which “he, along with an artist known as 'Uncle Murda,' laughed off this lawsuit (despite his allegations of 'severe emotional distress'), demanded that Mr. Combs pay him 'that money by Monday,' and warned, 'I'm from Chicago, we don't play games.'”
“Like the SAC, Jones’ videotaped threats on social media are part of a calculated effort to promote his personal brand and profit from exposure,” the motion states. “Such tactics have no place in federal court.”
In addition to dismissing the sexual assault claim, Combs’s lawyers are asking to dismiss a claim for damages for Combs’s pattern of racketeering, his liability for sexual advances by third parties, and the plaintiff’s alleged emotional distress. And as for the breach of oral contract claim, Combs’s lawyers wrote that the claim is past the statute of limitations.
In response, Blackburn called the filing a “billing exercise” for the attorneys who signed the motion, in a statement to Expiration.
“It's a lame attempt to line their pockets before he gets indicted, and they decide to kick their asses, just like his five previous lawyers did,” Blackburn told the outlet. “As far as Cotes' opinion goes, if their client doesn't act salacious, I won't have anything salacious to present. I pick my clients; I don't pick their facts.”
Jones has 15 days, or until September 9, to respond to the motion to dismiss filed Monday.
Combs has denied all allegations made against him in various lawsuits filed in recent years.