A California judge reversed course again Monday and fully dismissed Jay-Z’s extortion and defamation case against Texas lawyer Tony Buzbee.
In a 65-page ruling, Los Angeles County Judge Mark Epstein said he was not “wholly satisfied” with his decision, but he tried to balance the competing interests at play and would wait for the Court of Appeal to step in to determine whether he was “right or wrong.” He ended his ruling with the phrase, “stay tuned.”
Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, sued Buzbee last year with claims the high-profile Houston attorney knew he was peddling lies when he filed a lawsuit accusing Carter of being the male celebrity who raped a 13-year-old girl alongside Sean “Diddy” Combs at a New York party 25 years ago. Carter claims Buzbee sent him two demand letters in early November to squeeze him for money. He claims that weeks later, Buzbee named him as a co-defendant in the Jane Doe’s lawsuit against Combs because he refused to pay up in a secret settlement.
“There is no demand for a particular sum of money, although that is not enough to protect the Letters. The real problem for Carter is that the mediation request is about the sexual abuse allegations underpinning a potential civil case, and nothing else. There are no extraneous allegations as to publicizing other unrelated and unsavory things related to Carter and there are no promises to refrain from going to law enforcement if Carter agrees to mediate and does settle,” Epstein wrote in his long-awaited decision.
“While it is true that the alleged conduct here constitutes criminal activity, defendants fall well short of threatening to go to the police unless Carter pays up,” Epstein said. “Selling silence as to law enforcement for money is extortion, but there is no promise of silence in the criminal context here. And selling silence for money in the civil context is not extortion; it is a settlement with a non-disclosure element.”
“We are surprised and disappointed by this ruling which turns on the misapplication of California law on the admissibility of the investigators’ statements,” Carter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, tells Rolling Stone in a statement. “Notably, the Judge expressly states that his decision would have ‘change[d] dramatically’ if he had admitted the statements into evidence as they would have shown ‘not only that Carter had nothing to do with any sexual assault on Doe, but that Buzbee knew it…’ and thus ‘the court would come out the other way on this motion.’
“What does it say about our justice system if someone can knowingly bring about completely false claims of the most heinous nature imaginable against an innocent individual and get away with it on a technicality?” Spiro adds. “We plan to appeal this case immediately.”
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“Yet another huge win!!” Buzbee wrote on X. “John Doe’s case against me and The Buzbee Law Firm alleging extortion and defamation was thrown out by the court. As I said when it was filed, the case was completely meritless. We will now seek attorneys’ fees against John Doe for bringing the legally flawed case.”
At a hearing in February, Epstein said he was leaning toward only allowing some of Carter’s defamation claims to proceed. Then at a subsequent hearing in March, he signaled he had changed his mind and was inclined to let the Roc Nation founder proceed with his extortion claim as well. He said he reconsidered his position based on stunning new evidence collected by private investigators and submitted by Jay-Z’s lawyers.
The new evidence was a recorded a conversation between investigators and the Jane Doe on her front porch in Alabama in February. The woman allegedly said, “It was more Diddy, but Buzbee brought Jay-Z into it.” She appeared to tell the investigators that it was Buzbee who “pushed” her into publicly naming Jay-Z as one of her assailants.
“If the evidence can be considered — and the court believes it can be considered for this motion — it supports not only the defamation cause of action but also the extortion cause of action,” Judge Mark Epstein wrote in his tentative ruling issued in March. “If one accepts Doe’s statements to the investigators at face value, then she at least inferentially did not authorize the settlement letter to be sent or even conclude that she was going to sue Carter at the time the [letter was] mailed. Without a present intent to bring a lawsuit, the litigation privilege will fail.”
Rolling Stone previously obtained a portion of the alleged doorstep discussion with the Jane Doe. In the snippet, one of the investigators specifically asked if Doe was saying that Jay-Z, born Shawn Carter, was at the afterparty but “didn’t have anything to do with the any sexual acts towards you.”
“Yeah,” Doe replied. The other investigator then asked if it was Buzbee who suggested Jay-Z had a role in the alleged attack following the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000. “He was the one that kind of pushed me towards going forward with him, with Jay-Z,” the woman replied.
Buzbee’s lawyers fought the admissibility and relevance of the conversation. Carter then submitted the recording to the judge, and he reviewed it before issuing his ruling. He noted that the conversation was “not as clear as either party would like,” and that Jane Doe now reports she felt intimidated and threatened by the investigators. He said, ultimately, it appeared to the court that Doe’s interest in the interview was to go along with the suggestions the investigators made. “It was in Doe’s interest to go along with the investigators here because that way she would not be sued for malicious prosecution; it was in Doe’s interest to go along with the investigators here because that would keep her name out of the press,” he wrote.
“All of that said, the situation would change, and change dramatically, if the investigators’ declarations as to the conversation with Doe were admissible for the truth of what Doe stated,” Epstein wrote. “If that were the case, then there would be some evidence not only that Carter had nothing to do with any sexual assault on Doe, but that Buzbee knew it in the sense that (according to Doe) it was Buzbee that kept pressing to get Doe to implicate Carter.”
When Jay-Z first sued Buzbee anonymously in November, he claimed the high-powered Houston attorney was “shamelessly“ trying to extort him while representing dozens of plaintiffs with claims against indicted music mogul Sean Combs. Three weeks later, Buzbee filed the amended complaint naming Carter as the male celebrity who allegedly raped Doe alongside Combs when she was a minor.
Carter immediately — and vehemently — denied Doe’s allegations and confirmed he was the John Doe who filed the extortion lawsuit. The Jane Doe went on to voluntarily dismiss her entire complaint against Carter and Combs with prejudice — meaning it can’t be filed again — on Feb. 14 after admitting there were inconsistencies in her story.
Since then, Carter has filed a separate defamation lawsuit against Doe in Alabama, claiming she and Buzbee engaged in an “evil conspiracy” to extort him with the “completely fabricated” and “wildly horrific” rape claim.
In a sworn statement, Carter said that he considered Buzbee’s demand letter an “existential threat.” “I felt that Mr. Buzbee was placing a gun to my head that I either bow to his demands or endure personal and financial ruin. His actions caused me mental anguish about the ticking time bomb and what it would do to me, my family, and my hard-earned reputation,” he wrote.
Combs, meanwhile, is currently on trial for sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted as charged, he faces 15 years to life in prison.
Combs has been sued by dozens of plaintiffs alleging sexual misconduct. The music mogul, 55, denies any wrongdoing. “No matter how many lawsuits are filed, it won’t change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex-trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor,” his lawyers previously told Rolling Stone.
From Rolling Stone US
