{"id":3828,"date":"2025-01-23T07:38:16","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T07:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/diddy-sues-over-made-up-videotapes-said-to-show-sexual-assaults\/"},"modified":"2025-01-23T07:38:16","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T07:38:16","slug":"diddy-sues-over-made-up-videotapes-said-to-show-sexual-assaults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/diddy-sues-over-made-up-videotapes-said-to-show-sexual-assaults\/","title":{"rendered":"Diddy Sues Over ‘Made-Up’ Videotapes Said to Show Sexual Assaults"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tSean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs has sued a man he says defamed him by falsely alleging he possessed videos of the embattled hip-hop mogul committing sexual assault, causing him \u201cprofound reputational and economic injury and severe prejudice\u201d ahead of his criminal trial.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the complaint, filed in New York federal court on Wednesday (Jan. 22), Combs accuses Courtney Burgess, along with Burgess\u2019 attorney Ariel Mitchell<\/strong>, of \u201cpretending they have proof that Mr. Combs engaged in heinous acts, knowing that no such proof exists\u201d \u2014 thereby leading \u201cmillions of people \u2026 to believe in the made-up \u2018evidence\u2019 that Defendants have falsely described and vouched for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMitchell notably represents several of Combs\u2019 accusers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDefendant Burgess falsely claimed that he possessed videos of Mr. Combs involved in the sexual assault of celebrities and minors,\u201d write Combs\u2019 attorneys Michael Termonte<\/strong>, Erica Wolff<\/strong> and Anna Estevao<\/strong> of the New York firm Sher Tremonte. They add that Mitchell then \u201crepeated those lies\u201d to media outlets while knowing all along that Burgess\u2019 claims \u201cwere false, or at a minimum was utterly reckless in disregarding their falsity.\u201d The complaint accuses both Burgess and Mitchell of seeking \u201cto capitalize on the resulting publicity for financial gain\u201d despite knowing that \u201cno such tapes exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso named as a defendant in the lawsuit is cable network NewsNation, which the lawsuit claims \u201crecklessly repeated and amplifed [Burgess\u2019] lies as if they were true\u201d without ever reaching out to Combs\u2019 representatives for comment or verifying that the alleged videotapes existed in the first place.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo bolster their case, Combs\u2019 attorneys attempt to discredit Burgess by referring to him as \u201ca fringe character\u201d who claims to have worked in the music industry \u201cfor decades\u201d even though \u201cthere exists no public record of any professional achievements and he left no detectable footprint on the industry prior to his recent campaign to malign Mr. Combs.\u201d They further allege that despite Burgess\u2019 claims that he received the alleged videos from Combs\u2019 late ex-girlfriend Kim Porter, he in fact had \u201cno more than a passing acquaintance\u201d with her.<\/p>\n

\n\tCombs\u2019 attorneys also claim that Burgess tried to capitalize on the highly publicized allegations swirling around Combs by posting a memoir allegedly written by Porter to Amazon, which they say later pulled the book after it \u201cwas denounced by Ms. Porter\u2019s family and others as a fake,\u201d according to the suit.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit equally tries to discredit Mitchell \u2014 known for filing sexual assault cases against powerful men including Trey Songz, Chris Brown and Combs himself \u2014 by claiming her cases against Songz and Brown were disproven and that in \u201cpeddling false claims to media outlets\u201d like NewsNation about the alleged videotapes of Combs, she \u201cinsisted on valuable benefits and payments in exchange for interviews, including first class air travel, four-star hotel accommodations, hair and makeup allowances, and a \u2018materials fee\u2019 for copies of, among other things, demand letters sent on behalf of one of her clients who sued Mr. Combs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThey add that Mitchell spread her alleged lies about Combs far and wide, including in multiple NewsNation appearances and in a documentary about Combs titled The Making of a Bad Boy<\/em> that aired on NBC\u2019s Peacock streaming service earlier this month. (NBC is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDefendants made these false and defamatory statements in bad faith, as part of a deliberate effort to damage Mr. Combs\u2019s reputation, undermine his businesses and, by painting him as debauched and a pedophile, to poison the public\u2019s perception of him and deprive him of a fair trial,\u201d Combs\u2019 attorneys conclude.<\/p>\n

\n\tCombs is asking for \u201cnot less\u201d than $50 million in damages.<\/p>\n

\n\tBurgess, Mitchell and NewsNation did not immediately respond to Billboard<\/em>\u2018s requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tCombs is currently imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn ahead of his criminal trial, which is set to kick off on May 5. He is charged with running a multi-faceted criminal enterprise in order to satisfy his need for \u201csexual gratification.\u201d Among other accusations, he is alleged to have held so-called \u201cfreak off\u201d parties, during which he and others drugged victims and coerced them into having sex. He faces a potential life prison sentence if convicted on all charges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs has sued a man he says defamed him by falsely alleging he possessed videos of the embattled hip-hop mogul committing sexual assault, causing him \u201cprofound […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4380,296,4378,301,2280,479,4379],"class_list":["post-3828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-assaults","tag-diddy","tag-madeup","tag-sexual","tag-show","tag-sues","tag-videotapes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}