Jay-Z, the star rapper and entrepreneur whose real name is Shawn Carter, was accused in a lawsuit Sunday of raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000 allegedly along with Sean “Diddy” Combs.
The anonymous accuser, identified only as “Jane Doe,” said the assault happened after she was driven to an MTV Video Music Awards after-party.
The lawsuit was
originally filed in October in the Southern District of New York, listing Combs as a defendant. It was refiled Sunday to include Carter.
Carter's attorney, Alex Spiro, and his publicist, as well as Combs’ representatives, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Texas-based attorney Tony Buzbee, who filed the suit, did not comment.
Buzbee has filed several lawsuits in recent months — all have withheld their complainants’ names — accusing Combs of assault and rape. This is the first suit in which he has named another high-profile defendant.
Combs has repeatedly denied all the accusations against him. Federal prosecutors in New York criminally charged him in September with racketeering, sex trafficking and other offenses, and he is behind bars at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center after he was denied bail for a third time last month. His trial scheduled for May 5.
Prosecutors said in a court hearing last month that they are in the process of potentially bringing more charges against Combs in a superseding indictment.
Before Sunday's lawsuit was re-filed, "Carter received a letter from Plaintiff’s counsel requesting a mediation to resolve this matter," Buzbee wrote in the suit. NBC News has seen that letter. In response to the letter, Buzbee wrote in the suit, Carter filed his own lawsuit against the accuser's attorneys.
The lawsuit claims that in 2000, when Doe was 13, Combs and Carter raped her at a house party after the MTV Video Music Awards in New York.
The lawsuit says a friend dropped her off at the VMAs at Radio City Music Hall. She did not have a ticket and approached various limousine drivers to try to gain access to the show or an after-party.
One driver, the lawsuit said, told her that he worked for Combs and that she “fit what Diddy was looking for.” He invited her to a party after the show and told her to return to his car later in the evening after he transported Carter and Combs, the suit said.
Later, the driver picked her up, the suit said, and after 20 minutes they arrived at a white house with a U-shaped driveway, the suit says. She had to sign a document she believed was a nondisclosure agreement on arrival — and did not receive a copy — to enter the party, which the suit says was filled with celebrities and people doing marijuana and cocaine.
She was offered a drink that made her feel “woozy, lightheaded and felt [like] she needed to lie down,” the suit says, and she went into a room to rest.
Shortly afterward, the suit says, Combs and Carter entered the room with Combs saying, “You are ready to party!”
That’s when, she alleges, Carter removed her clothes, held her down and raped her while Combs and an unnamed female celebrity watched. She says Combs also raped her as Carter and the woman looked on.
The suit says that she was able to resist being forced to perform oral sex on Combs by hitting him in the neck and that he “stopped.”
After the alleged assault, the suit says, she “grabbed her clothes” and left. She made her way to a gas station, where she called her father.
The accuser is seeking unspecified damages. The lawsuit is filed under New York’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act.
