The case that alleged Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs repeatedly raped a 13-year-old after the 2000 MTV VMAs was dismissed on Valentines’ Day by its Jane Doe plaintiff. However, in legal moves on both coasts, the two rappers are apparently far from done with her lawyer, Tony Buzbee.
Representing dozens and dozens of alleged victims of sexual assault and alleging attacks and abuse by the Bad Boy Records founder, the brash Houston-based attorney now finds himself pummeled by Combs and Shawn Carter (Jay-Z’s real name) in federal court in New York over unauthorized practice of law, and in state court in California.
A tentative ruling out of an early morning anti-SLAPP hearing Tuesday before LA Superior Court Judge Mark H. Epstein appeared to render Jay-Z’s extortion claim against Buzbee DOA. Yet, it seems the defamation claim from the “99 Problems” superstar’s initial suit will almost certainly go forward to trial. “The conduct alleged raises serious questions about whether Buzbee acted with actual malice, a key component in defamation cases involving public figures,” Judge Epstein said in the tentative, pointing to Buzbee terming his now former client a “sexual assault survivor” on social media.
Stating that he would weigh the arguments made before him on February 25 by attorneys like Camille Vasquez, Judge Epstein also noted that Buzbee liking posts that claimed that Jay-Z was the male “Celebrity A” in the 2000 rape case implies a degree of malice necessary in a defamation case.
After a graphic October 20 lawsuit named Combs for the alleged 2000 rape with mention of a male “Celebrity A “and a female “Celebrity B, an Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan-represented anonymous “celebrity and public figure who resides in Los Angeles” went after the hyperbolic Buzbee for extortion in LASC on November 18. On December 8, the Texas attorney lawyer refiled his initial suit claiming that Jay-Z was the Celebrity A.
Denying he had anything to do with something so “heinous in nature” as what he and Combs were accused of, Jay-Z outed himself as the “figure who resides in LA.” After months of fighting the rape claims in federal court in NYC, failing to get it tossed out, threatening sanctions on Buzbee via the rapper’s longtime lawyer Alex Spiro for not performing due diligence, bribery, and more, the dismissal of the seriously undermined claims by the now middle-aged Jane Doe only seemed to galvanized Beyoncé’s better half to go after the Texan more.
Pushing back against Buzbee’s own efforts to have the West Coast case killed, Jay-Z told in the court in a February 10 declaration the “career-ending” accusations of assaulting a 13-year-old girl ripped into his business and his family — the former to the tune of $20 million a year and a loss of reputation.
Judge Epstein hasn’t made a final ruling yet and the next hearing is on the calendar for late March. Yet, it seems pretty clear that the dispute with Buzbee is now very personal, still on, and Jay-Z wants to take this as far as it will go.
In that pursuit, the ‘Empire State of Mind’ performer may be receiving some assistance from his former co-defendant Diddy on the East Coast.
Paperwork placed in the Southern District Of New York court docket late Tuesday in the 2004 sexual assault civil case filed back in October by a Jane Doe, now identified as Candice McCrary by Combs’ legal team slammed Buzbee as having presented a false picture of his ability to practice in the jurisdiction – where he has about a dozen cases against the much accused and currently incarcerated Diddy.
“In our collective decades of practice, undersigned counsel have never opposed a pro hac vice application, and we do not do so lightly here,” wrote Comb’s Sher Tremonte lawyers in an opposition memorandum to Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil. “But Buzbee’s egregious misconduct warrants denial of the privilege of appearing in this District,” they added of the Texan’s February 24 formal pro hac vice request to be allowed to be in court in the jurisdiction where he cannot practice
Not for the first time, Buzbee himself pushed back a few days ago against Combs’ long stated criticism. The attorney posted a Lone Star flag flying letter stating that he has the right to practice in the Empire state.
However, perhaps splitting legal hairs, Buzbee made no mention of the fact that a lawyer must seeking individual admission to be allowed to appear in District Court in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York.
In his posting Buzbee left out that on February 13, the day before the action against Diddy and Jay-Z was dropped, the Chair of the Committee on Grievances for the Southern District of New York publicly denied Buzbee’s request for admission. Buzbee did mention in his February 24 application for pro hac vice for McCrary that he was “recently denied admission to the bar of the Southern District of New York based in large part on” a grievance raised against him by lawyers for Combs and Carter. He does not explicitly state, as the Committee on Grievances did, that he was denied admission for appearing in several SDNY cases against Combs without having previously sought said admission.
Perhaps knowing he will face challenges on all the other New York cases against Combs he is involved in, Buzbee also did not seem to mention that the Committee on Grievances demanded he must attach their order denying him admission to practice in the district to ant pro hac vice motion or petition
In that vein, Combs’ attorneys go on to say in Tuesday’s opposition memo:
Buzbee’s motion for admission pro hac vice should be denied because he has repeatedly shown that he is unwilling or unable to follow this District’s Local Rules and because his application is deficient. For nearly five months, Buzbee has filed case after case in this District against Defendants in the name of anonymous plaintiffs without seeking admission of any kind and without disclosing his lack of admission (until raised by a court or adversary). He did not apply for admission to practice in this District until January 29, 2025, more than six weeks after his failure to do so was publicized in a letter filed by opposing counsel, five weeks after he represented to another Judge in this District that he intended to apply for admission (which he only did after opposing counsel disclosed Buzbee’s lack of admission), and two weeks after he represented to another Judge in this district that his application was forthcoming.
Even after Buzbee was expressly put on notice by the Committee on Grievances that making repeated submissions to courts in a District where he is not authorized to practice violates the Local Rules —a concept so fundamental to the practice of law it requires no forewarning— Buzbee took no corrective action. Instead, he continued making filings in this District without noting his lack of admission until this Court required him to seek pro hac vice admission. If this Court had not noticed that Buzbee was practicing without being admitted, there is every reason to believe he would have continued to do so because that is precisely what Buzbee is doing in more than twenty other cases pending in this District. Even after declaring in a February 20, 2025 affidavit submitted to this Court that his errors were inadvertent and he will “make certain such [conduct] never occurs again,” he has failed to seek admission pro hac vice in any of the other pending cases.
He has signed multiple filings across twenty-two cases without permission to practice in this Court; he failed in each instance to disclose that he had filed without being admitted; and he violated New York’s Rules of Professional Conduct by, among other things, repeatedly insisting that Mr. Combs is guilty of the criminal charges pending against him in this District, even though Buzbee has no good faith basis to believe the Government will call any of his clients as a witness in that case. For these reasons, discussed in detail below, this Court should deny Buzbee’s pro hac vice application.
Buzbee’s office did not respond to request from Deadline for comment on Combs’ latest filing.
Unlike many accused of such sex crimes, the usually very private Jay-Z has been insisting on his innocence at virtually every turn, and very public at Hollywood premieres, at Christmas Day NFL game, at the Grammys, the Super Bowl and more.
On the other hand, Sean “Diddy” Combs is behind bars at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, where he has been ever since his September 16 arrest. Failing on several occasions to get released on $50 million bail and looking at life in prison if found guilty in the criminal case, a not guilty pleading and prosecutors attacking Combs is set to go to trial on racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution charges starting May 5.
Tony Buzbee has nothing to do with that criminal case.