Part 2
Buzbee continues: “There were girls at these parties doing things they would never do in public, with everybody watching. And I don’t think it’s because they were just drunk or high on drugs. It’s because they didn’t even realise they were being given a drug and were being coerced into it.
“Guilt, shame, fear of retribution, fear of violence, whatever, it takes people a long time to get up the courage to come forward,” Buzbee says. “Usually the argument they make to themselves is, ‘How did I put myself in this position?’ They blame themselves. And they won’t come forward unless somebody else does with the same kind of story. But every day they don’t come forward makes it harder, because most people who don’t understand sexual assault will be very judgmental.
“But the way I look at it, I don’t care how long it takes, you’ve had the courage to step forward. A lot of people will say, ‘I believe all victims’ – well, I can’t be that silly, because there are people that come forward trying to sell me a bunch of baloney.
“It’s my bar licence and my reputation, so I have to be very careful about being on the one hand very receptive, and trying to help somebody; and on the other hand not pursuing a case that turns out not to be credible and which makes all the other cases look bad. It’s a very fine line, which is why we’re filing these cases so slowly.”
In October, Buzbee warned that “many powerful people will be exposed” through the lawsuits. And the charges against Combs have set the conspiracy mill churning. “There’s a lot of interest in this case, and a lot of foolishness out there,” Buzbee says now. “I don’t read all of it, but I hear about it. All the things related to this case, I would say 90 per cent of it is foolishness.
“There’s this idea that I’m Joe McCarthy or something, that I have in my possession some secret list. There’s no secret list. I have said that some of the people named in the case will raise some eyebrows. But most of them we can already guess who they are. It’s not like they were secret parties.”
The most high-profile name to emerge so far is Jay-Z, the rapper and businessman married to fellow superstar Beyoncé.
Jay-Z, right, has been accused of raping a 13-year-old girl with Combs Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Roc Nation
It is a standard legal practice in personal injury cases, Buzbee says, to file what is known as a demand – usually a letter outlining the case against the accused, and offering a mediation to settle the case.
“I’ll never put a number in there. I’ll just send a letter saying, here’s the facts we have about you, it’s confidential, and we would like to get together in two weeks for a mediation that’s cloaked and nobody can talk about what’s said, and try to resolve this without the filing of a public lawsuit.
“People claim extortion and all kinds of silly stuff. But it’s typical in these kinds of cases, because suits are so overwhelming and stressful to the plaintiff, because it creates a lot of publicity which makes it even more difficult.
“But I have not been sending these letters saying you will do this or else. First off, that’s the way to get yourself in trouble; and number two, that’s not the way I operate. I try to keep it professional.”
‘If something has happened once it’s happened a hundred times’
In November, Buzbee despatched a confidential letter to Jay-Z – real name Shawn Carter – outlining an allegation against him, along with Combs, having raped a 13-year-old girl, identified only as “Jane Doe”, at a party in 2000 following the MTV Video Awards. Jay-Z had been nominated for an award for the video of his song Big Pimpin’.
Carter’s response was to sue Buzbee, alleging the lawyer had attempted to blackmail him by making the rape allegation public if he did not agree to a legal settlement. He later took to social media platform X describing the demand letter as a “blackmail attempt”, and Buzbee as “deplorable” and “an ambulance chaser in a cheap suit”.
“I mourn yet another loss of innocence,” Carter went on, lamenting the pain the allegations have inflicted on his family. “We protect children,” he wrote, “you seem to exploit them for personal gain. Only your network of conspiracy theorists, fake psychics, will believe the idiotic claims you have levied against me that, if not for the seriousness surrounding harm to kids, would be laughable.”
This week Carter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, described the now 38-year-old unnamed woman’s account as “provably, demonstrably false” pointing out apparent inconsistencies in her account.
Responding to these allegations, Buzbee issued a statement to NBC News saying that his office had “interrogated [the woman] intensely” and that she had even agreed to a polygraph. “This has been extremely distressing for her, to the point she has experienced seizures and had to seek medical treatment due to the stress.”
In postings made on X he described Carter’s assertions about attempts to blackmail him as “bogus and laughable”.
Carter, he said, had not only sued him anonymously “but has tried to bully me and harass me and this plaintiff. His conduct has had the opposite impact. She is emboldened. I’m very proud of her resolve,” adding that the facts of the case will be “[litigated] in court, not in the media”.
Jay-Z and P Diddy together in 2000, the year the alleged incident took place Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Not all the plaintiffs Buzbee is representing are women. The youngest is a man who, it is alleged, as a nine-year-old boy, was abused by Combs and others at an audition at the studio of his Bad Boy Records, where promises were made to the boy and his parents about a potential record deal.
Buzbee has handled a number of high-profile sexual abuse cases in the past and there is usually a pattern, he says – if something has happened once it’s happened a hundred times.
In 2013 he sued Stanley Marsh, the eccentric millionaire responsible for “Cadillac Ranch” – the art installation in Amarillo, Texas, featuring a row of vintage Cadillacs buried nose first in the ground. Marsh had an apartment downtown where over the years he sexually abused a succession of underage boys.
Buzbee continues: “There were girls at these parties doing things they would never do in public, with everybody watching. And I don’t think it’s because they were just drunk or high on drugs. It’s because they didn’t even realise they were being given a drug and were being coerced into it.
“Guilt, shame, fear of retribution, fear of violence, whatever, it takes people a long time to get up the courage to come forward,” Buzbee says. “Usually the argument they make to themselves is, ‘How did I put myself in this position?’ They blame themselves. And they won’t come forward unless somebody else does with the same kind of story. But every day they don’t come forward makes it harder, because most people who don’t understand sexual assault will be very judgmental.
“But the way I look at it, I don’t care how long it takes, you’ve had the courage to step forward. A lot of people will say, ‘I believe all victims’ – well, I can’t be that silly, because there are people that come forward trying to sell me a bunch of baloney.
“It’s my bar licence and my reputation, so I have to be very careful about being on the one hand very receptive, and trying to help somebody; and on the other hand not pursuing a case that turns out not to be credible and which makes all the other cases look bad. It’s a very fine line, which is why we’re filing these cases so slowly.”
In October, Buzbee warned that “many powerful people will be exposed” through the lawsuits. And the charges against Combs have set the conspiracy mill churning. “There’s a lot of interest in this case, and a lot of foolishness out there,” Buzbee says now. “I don’t read all of it, but I hear about it. All the things related to this case, I would say 90 per cent of it is foolishness.
“There’s this idea that I’m Joe McCarthy or something, that I have in my possession some secret list. There’s no secret list. I have said that some of the people named in the case will raise some eyebrows. But most of them we can already guess who they are. It’s not like they were secret parties.”
The most high-profile name to emerge so far is Jay-Z, the rapper and businessman married to fellow superstar Beyoncé.
Jay-Z, right, has been accused of raping a 13-year-old girl with Combs Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Roc Nation
It is a standard legal practice in personal injury cases, Buzbee says, to file what is known as a demand – usually a letter outlining the case against the accused, and offering a mediation to settle the case.
“I’ll never put a number in there. I’ll just send a letter saying, here’s the facts we have about you, it’s confidential, and we would like to get together in two weeks for a mediation that’s cloaked and nobody can talk about what’s said, and try to resolve this without the filing of a public lawsuit.
“People claim extortion and all kinds of silly stuff. But it’s typical in these kinds of cases, because suits are so overwhelming and stressful to the plaintiff, because it creates a lot of publicity which makes it even more difficult.
“But I have not been sending these letters saying you will do this or else. First off, that’s the way to get yourself in trouble; and number two, that’s not the way I operate. I try to keep it professional.”
‘If something has happened once it’s happened a hundred times’
In November, Buzbee despatched a confidential letter to Jay-Z – real name Shawn Carter – outlining an allegation against him, along with Combs, having raped a 13-year-old girl, identified only as “Jane Doe”, at a party in 2000 following the MTV Video Awards. Jay-Z had been nominated for an award for the video of his song Big Pimpin’.
Carter’s response was to sue Buzbee, alleging the lawyer had attempted to blackmail him by making the rape allegation public if he did not agree to a legal settlement. He later took to social media platform X describing the demand letter as a “blackmail attempt”, and Buzbee as “deplorable” and “an ambulance chaser in a cheap suit”.
“I mourn yet another loss of innocence,” Carter went on, lamenting the pain the allegations have inflicted on his family. “We protect children,” he wrote, “you seem to exploit them for personal gain. Only your network of conspiracy theorists, fake psychics, will believe the idiotic claims you have levied against me that, if not for the seriousness surrounding harm to kids, would be laughable.”
This week Carter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, described the now 38-year-old unnamed woman’s account as “provably, demonstrably false” pointing out apparent inconsistencies in her account.
Responding to these allegations, Buzbee issued a statement to NBC News saying that his office had “interrogated [the woman] intensely” and that she had even agreed to a polygraph. “This has been extremely distressing for her, to the point she has experienced seizures and had to seek medical treatment due to the stress.”
In postings made on X he described Carter’s assertions about attempts to blackmail him as “bogus and laughable”.
Carter, he said, had not only sued him anonymously “but has tried to bully me and harass me and this plaintiff. His conduct has had the opposite impact. She is emboldened. I’m very proud of her resolve,” adding that the facts of the case will be “[litigated] in court, not in the media”.
Jay-Z and P Diddy together in 2000, the year the alleged incident took place Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Not all the plaintiffs Buzbee is representing are women. The youngest is a man who, it is alleged, as a nine-year-old boy, was abused by Combs and others at an audition at the studio of his Bad Boy Records, where promises were made to the boy and his parents about a potential record deal.
Buzbee has handled a number of high-profile sexual abuse cases in the past and there is usually a pattern, he says – if something has happened once it’s happened a hundred times.
In 2013 he sued Stanley Marsh, the eccentric millionaire responsible for “Cadillac Ranch” – the art installation in Amarillo, Texas, featuring a row of vintage Cadillacs buried nose first in the ground. Marsh had an apartment downtown where over the years he sexually abused a succession of underage boys.
