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.
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.
