Judge dismisses Jay-Z’s extortion lawsuit against Tony Buzbee
Shawn ‘Jay-Z‘ Carter filed a lawsuit against Tony Buzbee, the lawyer who accused him of raping a 13-year-old girl alongside Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, last year. However, on July 1st, Los Angeles County Judge Mark Epstein dismissed the extortion and defamation case.
Hov sued Buzbee, claiming the attorney named him a co-defendant in the initial lawsuit due to his refusal to pay in a secret settlement. Epstein admitted he wasn’t “wholly satisfied” with his decision and would leave it to the Court of Appeal to make up their minds.
“There is no demand for a particular sum of money, although that is not enough to protect the Letters,” Epstein said. “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 publicising other unrelated and unsavoury things related to Carter and there are no promises to refrain from going to law enforcement if Carter agrees to mediate and does settle.”
Buzbee celebrated the news in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “Yet another huge win!!” he wrote. “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.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, Carter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, said, “We are surprised and disappointed by this ruling which turns on the misapplication of California law on the admissibility of the investigators’ statements.
“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.’”
He added, “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? We plan to appeal this case immediately.”
Carter described Buzbee as a “1-800 lawyer” after his rape lawsuit was “voluntarily dismissed with prejudice” in February.