A motion by the legal team of Jay-Z has been granted a request to be allowed to file for a dismissal in his ongoing legal battle.
The 55-year-old rapper – whose real name is Shawn Carter – has been accused of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl at an MTV Video Music Awards after party in 2000 along with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, which he has denied.
On Thursday, Judge Analisa Torres granted his attorney Alex Spiro’s request to enter a dismissal motion in the lawsuit.
In court documents shared on X by law journalist Meghann Cuniff, the judge wrote: ‘Carter’s request to file a motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s amended complaint is GRANTED.’
Tony Buzbee, who is the lawyer representing Carter’s accuser, has responded with an objection to the request, which is due to the court by February 5.
The accuser, known as Jane Doe in court documents, has a deadline of February 28 to ‘file her opposition papers’, which would then give the rapper’s team until March 14 to ‘file his reply, if any’.
His legal team has claimed his accuser was ‘required – but failed’ to address the issues in the letter within five business days, which ended on December 27.
Spiro argued that Bzbee ignored critical details that allegedly nullify the case, while he previously cited the timing of the events and said the legal statute Jane Doe is suing under (the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act) – was not implemented until three months later.
In the December 30 filing, his legal team said: ‘The GMV Law was not enacted until December 19, 2000, three months after [Jay-Z’s accuser] claims the conduct occurred, and cannot apply retroactively to create a cause of action unavailable to Plaintiff at the time in question.’
Meanwhile, Spiro also argued that Jane Doe’s claim that she was driven to the party in a 20-minute limousine ride means the alleged crime did not occur in New York City, thus invalidating the lawsuit.
Buzbee told TMZ earlier this week: ‘These are technical arguments being made and the law is clearly on our side and the side of alleged victims. The law is well settled that we are correct.’
The judge presiding over the case recently ruled that the accuser’s anonymity would not be waived after Carter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, filed a motion to do so.
Torres blasted Spiro’s ‘relentless filing of combative motions containing inflammatory language and ad hominem attacks’ as ‘inappropriate’.
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The motion was called a ‘waste of judicial resources, and a tactic unlikely to benefit his client.’
Jane Doe was previously interviewed by NBC News, during which she detailed her version of events – but it also highlighted inconsistencies in her story, which she later acknowledged.
She claimed she later spoke to Good Charlotte guitarist Benji Madden — who was not in the city at the time — and was picked up by her father after the alleged assault, but he does not recall doing so.
Images from the night she claimed she was assaulted show Carter and Combs at an after-party different to the one she had described, however, the music moguls’ exact whereabouts for the entire evening remain unknown.
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