The legal team representing Sean “Diddy” Combs has filed a motion to dismiss claims that the recording artist engaged in acts of revenge porn and human trafficking in 1991, as alleged in a lawsuit filed by Joi Dickerson-Neal last fall. Dickerson-Neal, who has publicly identified herself, accused Diddy of drugging and sexually assaulting her at his residence in New York City after they met at a restaurant in Harlem and visited a recording studio.
Diddy’s legal team argues that the allegations are false, offensive, and salacious, and that the revenge porn and human trafficking claims “cannot survive” their dismissal motions due to legal timeframes in New York state. They point out that the specified laws were not enacted until many years after the alleged incident: the New York Services for Victims of Human Trafficking Law was codified in 2007, 16 years after the alleged event; while the New York State Revenge Porn Law was enacted in 2019, 28 years later.
Dickerson-Neal’s legal team claims that Diddy engaged in “revenge porn” by filming the alleged assault and showing it to his peers in the music industry. They also allege that he had her attend sexual encounters with male prostitutes while he filmed them. Diddy has denied all allegations made in the suit, with his lawyers calling them “false, offensive, and salacious.
In addition to dismissing the revenge porn and human trafficking claims, Diddy’s legal team is asking the court to exclude Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy Records, and Combs Enterprises from the lawsuit, as they did not exist in 1991. Diddy created Bad Boy Entertainment in 1993 and Combs Enterprises in 2013.
The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, which Dickerson-Neal has done. The criminal investigation into Diddy’s properties in Los Angeles and Miami last month is a major escalation in the scrutiny of the musician, who has been named as a defendant in several recent sexual abuse lawsuits.
In one lawsuit, Combs settled just days after it was filed, with his former protégée and girlfriend Cassie alleging years of sexual abuse, including rape. The lawsuit claimed that he forced her to have sex with male prostitutes while he filmed them. In another case, a music producer alleged that Diddy coerced him to solicit prostitutes and pressured him to have sex with them. A third accuser claimed that Combs raped her when she was 17.
Combs and his attorneys have denied all allegations in the lawsuits.
