Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ lawyers move to overturn $100m award over assault case
Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs have moved to overturn a $100m judgment awarded this week to a Michigan prison inmate who accused the music mogul of sexual assault 27 years ago.
Two emergency motions filed at Lenawee county’s circuit court accuse Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith of launching a “frivolous” lawsuit against the entertainer, who they insist he never met.
Cardello-Smith, 51, accused Combs of drugging and sexually molesting him at a party in Detroit in 1997 – and won a default award at a virtual hearing on Monday when neither the three-time Grammy winner nor his lawyers showed up to contest the allegation.
The action was one of at least eight other lawsuits filed in recent months against Combs, a rapper, producer and businessman. The most recent complaint was lodged the day after the Cardello-Smith judgment, when Dawn Richard, a singer in the former Combs-founded girl group Danity Kane, sued for sexual assault and inhumane treatment.
Related: Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs loses $100m default judgment over sexual assault allegation
Lawyers for Combs did not comment on the new filings. But in their second motion they blasted the plaintiff while aiming to dissolve a temporary restraining order granted against their client as part of the judgment Cardello-Smith won by default.
“This is a frivolous lawsuit against a prominent businessman, based on obvious fabrications, filed by a convicted rapist and serial litigant with an overactive imagination and a thirst for fame,” Marc Agnifilo, Combs’ lawyer, wrote.
“[Combs] learned about plaintiff and this action for the first time three days ago, when media outlets reported that this court had entered a $100m default judgment against him. Had the complaint been served (and it was not), it would nonetheless be subject to swift dismissal on the merits.
“[Even] if every (wholly implausible and obviously fabricated) allegation in the complaint were true, the action would still be completely non-viable because the statute of limitations on the claims asserted expired almost 17 years before the case was filed.”
Combs’ attorneys said Cardello-Smith’s complaint was “objectively unbelievable and incoherent”. They also asserted that the plaintiff had “a history of filing frivolous lawsuits”.
They specifically cited a “fantastical” claim by the plaintiff that he paid Combs $150,000 for a 49% share in the entertainer’s net worth. A 2022 estimate by Forbes valued the rapper’s fortune at $1bn, and despite losing his billionaire status because of his legal troubles, he is still worth an estimated $800m.
The Lenawee county circuit court judge Anna Marie Anzalone has not stated when she will consider the emergency motions.
Before the $100m judgment, she issued an order preventing Combs from selling any assets that might have helped him raise funds for any damages the court found him liable for.
