Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs recently notched a victory in one of the many lawsuits recently filed against him.
A judge has thrown out most of the claims in a sexual assault lawsuit filed against the 55-year-old music mogul by music producer Rodney ‘Lil Rod’ Jones.
The court documents obtained by TMZ show that the judge dismissed five out of the nine claims brought forward by Jones against Diddy. This comes at a time when Diddy has raised eyebrows by choosing to work with Kanye West.
Among them were RICO claims, as well as allegations of emotional distress and brach of contract.
Diddy has consistently refuted all accusations made against him in recent lawsuits, as well as federal charges that were filed against him last year.
‘Lil Rod is nothing more than a liar who filed a $30 billion lawsuit shamelessly looking for an undeserved payday,’ attorney Shawn Holley previously claimed to the publication.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs recently notched a victory in a sexual assault lawsuit filed against him by the music producer Rodney ‘Lil Rod’ Jones; seen in 2022 in LA
According to court documents obtained by TMZ, the judge threw out five of nine claims Jones had levied against Diddy; pictured in a court sketch released March 14 from his federal trial
One of Jones claims was also against the I’ll Be Missing You rapper’s company, Combs Global.Â
He had accused the company of violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, but the judge also dismissed that claim.Â
Although Jones’ lawsuit against Diddy is still alive, it appears to be on unsure footing after the judge also castigated the producer’s attorney.
His lawyer, Tyrone A. Blackburn, was called out in court for allegedly submitting legal filings that were not up to snuff.
Among the judge’s criticisms was that Blackburn allegedly acted as if Diddy wasn’t guaranteed a presumption of innocence in an ongoing federal case in which he was hit with charges for sex trafficking, racketeering and other offenses.
However, the judge seems to have given Blackburn the benefit of the doubt by suggesting he simply didn’t understand that the defendant was presumed to be innocent unless found guilty.
Back in February 2024, Jones sued Diddy for alleged groping and a possible drug-induced rape, with the suit being filed just weeks before two of Combs’ homes were raided by federal agents amid a sex trafficking probe
But in April of last year, Combs’ legal team sought to throw Jones’ credibility into question by unearthing the accuser’s own past interactions with the criminal justice system.
Among them were RICO claims, as well as allegations of emotional distress and brach of contract.
The judge also castigated Jones’ attorney for allegedly shoddy filings. Jones (pictured) filed suit in February. In his lawsuit, Jones claims he was subjected to a year of grooming and abuse
Combs’ attorneys pointed out that Jones was convicted of a reckless homicide in 2003, and that he has faced multiple assault charges that were later dismissed.Â
Jones’ lawyer Tyrone Blackburn sprang to his client’s defense, responding to the assault claims by reminding Page Six that ‘a charge is not a conviction.’
He then explained the homicide by saying Jones accidentally ‘totaled’ a car while driving, tragically killing his cousin and ‘best friend,’ who was seated beside him.Â
Court documents obtained by Page Six indicated that Jones faced a misdemeanor sexual assault charge in 2006, followed by domestic assault charges in 2009 and 2014, but that in all cases the charges were ultimately dismissed.
Confronted with the information about the assault cases, Blackburn retorted: ‘I am sure you know that a charge is not a conviction.’Â
With regard to the conviction that did occur, Blackburn said: ‘Mr. Jones’ July 2003 reckless homicide occurred when he was 17 years old.’
Jones’ attorney continued: ‘He was driving a vehicle with his cousin in the passenger seat. The police pulled him over, but he was afraid and drove off. It was pretty typical behavior for a young black boy in Chicago when pulled over by the police. As a result, he totaled the vehicle, and his cousin, who was his best friend, died.’
Blackburn asserted that Jones pled guilty, being without ‘adequate legal representation,’ and added that his client ‘has to live with the guilt of the death of his best friend and family member for the rest of his life.’
Combs was sued November 16 by his ex-girlfriend, the singer Cassie, who accused him of rape and physical abuse before the case was settled out of court
In the lawsuit he filed against Combs in February, Jones claimed he was ordered to recruit prostitutes and have sex with them for the star’s pleasure, and has hundreds of hours of video documenting Combs’s ‘serious illegal activity’.
Jones had named some of the industry’s biggest names as co-defendants in the $30 million suit, claiming record boss Ethiopia Habtemariam dismissed Combs’s groping as ‘friendly horseplay’, and his way of ‘showing that he likes you’.
‘His reckless name-dropping about events that are pure fiction and simply did not happen is nothing more than a transparent attempt to garner headlines,’ Diddy’s attorney Holley claimed.
‘We have overwhelming, indisputable proof that his claims are complete lies. Our attempts to share this proof with Mr Jones’ attorney, Tyrone Blackburn, have been ignored, as Mr Blackburn refuses to return our calls.’
Combs recruited Jones in August 2022 to produce some of the songs on the R&B album ‘The Love Album: Off the Grid’ which was nominated for a Grammy after its release in September 2023.
‘Mr Jones agreed, and his life has been detrimentally impacted ever since,’ the lawsuit claims.
For more than a year he endured ‘constant unsolicited and unauthorized groping and touching of his anus’, at Combs’ homes in Florida, Los Angeles and New York, as well as on a rented yacht in the US Virgin Islands, Jones asserted.
Combs introduced him to Cuba Gooding Jr on the yacht where the actor allegedly began ‘touching, groping, and fondling Mr Jones’s legs, his upper inner thighs near his groin, the small of his back near his buttocks and his shoulders’.
Diddy has denied gang-raping a 17-year-old girl in his Manhattan recording studio in 2003 while claiming a photograph of her sitting in his lap (pictured) ‘isn’t accurate’
Within an hour of December’s lawsuit being filed, Combs emphatically denied all accusations against him in a tweet that has already been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people
The star received the key to New York City alongside sons Quincy Brown and Justin Combs in Times Square in September last year
Jones’s suit was filed at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York three weeks after Jones launched a Gofundme appeal asking for money to sue the rapper for unpaid royalties
He claims he was also sexually assaulted by a female cousin of Combs’s girlfriend Yung Miami and forced to watch a video of record producer Stevie J having sex with another man.
Jones was required to work in Combs’ bathroom where the star would shower naked behind a glass screen, according to the lawsuit.
The producer alleges Combs boasted of having shot people and threatened to inflict bodily harm if Jones did not comply with his demands.
He says the ‘forceful and demanding’ star privately admitted involvement in a 1999 nightclub shooting that saw him acquitted of gun possession and bribery charges.
‘Mr Combs consistently made it clear that he has immense power in the music industry and with law enforcement,’ the lawsuit claims.
Jones claims that underage girls and sex workers were guests at the star’s house parties and that he saw the star drug their drinks.
He also claims he was ordered to go to Miami to trawl bars and nightspots to recruit sex workers, and says he himself was drugged in February last year before he woke up naked, dizzy and confused in bed with Combs and two sex workers.
The suit was filed at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York three weeks after Jones launched a Gofundme appeal asking for money to sue the rapper for unpaid royalties.
