Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Jay-Z, is using Google Maps in an attempt to disprove a woman’s claim that the rapper and Sean “Diddy” Combs raped her when she was 13 years old.
Tony Buzbee, the attorney representing Jane Doe in this lawsuit, told Newsweek on Thursday that Spiro “wants to make unilateral arguments for dispositive relief rather than engage in discovery like we do in every other case.”
“Like every other filing he has made to date in this case, this one is shrill, desperate, and meritless,” Buzbee said.
Newsweek reached out to Spiro via email for comment on Thursday.
Why It Matters
A Jane Doe already suing Combs amended her complaint in November to add Jay-Z, accusing the two of raping her at an MTV Video Music Awards after-party in 2000 when she was 13. Combs and Jay-Z have denied these allegations.
Jay-Z’s latest filing continues his attempts to get the lawsuit dismissed.
The Context
Doe’s lawsuit states that on September 7, 2000, she had a friend drive her from Rochester to Radio City Music Hall in New York City so she could try to attend the MTV Video Music Awards. Unable to get inside to see the show, Doe said she watched the show outside on a jumbotron and approached Combs’ limo driver.
“One of the limousine drivers she spoke to claimed to work for Defendant Combs. The driver told her that Combs liked younger girls and said she ‘fit what Diddy was looking for,’ and while not allowing her into the Awards, the driver invited her to an afterparty,” the lawsuit states.
Doe said the driver drove for about 20 minutes, and they arrived “at what she believed to be a large white residence with a gated U-shaped driveway.”
Inside, Doe said she signed what she believed to be a non-disclose agreement and started to feel ill after drinking a provided beverage. Then, she said, Combs and Jay-Z raped her while a female celebrity was also in the room.
What To Know
In legal filings Wednesday, Spiro provided multiple Exhibits of screenshots from Google Maps showing the distance and typical driving time between New York City locations mentioned in Doe’s lawsuit.
This includes travel times from Radio City Music Hall (where the 2000 VMAs were held) to Lotus and Twirl Nightclubs on a Thursday night in September around 11:30 p.m.
Spiro claims Jay-Z went to these clubs after the award show, which ended around 11:11 p.m.
Another screenshot displays the route from Radio City Music Hall to a home in the Hamptons on a Thursday night in September around 11 p.m. and midnight.
The screenshots also include a promotional poster from the 2000 VMAs picturing Blink-182 and a Table of Sunrise/Sunset, Moonrise/Moonset, or Twilight Times for the year 2000, “reflecting sunrise at 6:30 a.m. (adjusted for daylight savings) on September 8, 2000, posted on the United States Navy’s website,” the filing says.
Spiro says the exhibits prove Doe’s allegations about what happened on the night of the alleged assault prove the accusations are false. He argued Buzbee had never met Doe before filing her lawsuit and criticized him for his alleged lack of vetting her claims.
“If nothing else, these inconsistencies should have been run to ground before Mr. Buzbee sponsored allegations that could not withstand a simple Google search,” Spiro wrote.
This filing comes after several previous filings from Jay-Z’s legal team citing inconsistencies between Doe’s lawsuit and her December interview with NBC News.
What People Are Saying
Buzbee told Newsweek on Thursday: “With regard to meeting with the client, [Spiro] obviously didn’t bother to prepare our response. He can’t even get his facts right in his own filings but criticizes Jane Doe for misremembering a few facts 24 years ago when she was a minor. I prefer to try the case in court rather than in a play by play commentary of Mr. Spiro’s frivolous filings.”
Kat Pasion, Combs’ former girlfriend, in The Fall of Diddy: “[Combs] came into the room to watch a little bit. He’s walking out of the room, and he says, ‘There’s a little bit of R. Kelly in all of us,’ and then walks out the door.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz on The Bulwark, urging President Donald Trump to release the alleged “Diddy List”: “We deserve to know who is implicated in abusing children.”
What’s Next
Combs’ sex trafficking trial is set to start on May 5 in New York.
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