Jay-Z’s lawyer expects the hip-hop mogul, whose real name is Shawn Carter, to soon be “cleared” from a lawsuit that accuses him and rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs of raping a minor in 2000, he told NBC News on Monday.
Carter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, told NBC News in an on-camera interview his client “isn’t going to get shaken down” after he was accused in a civil lawsuit last week of raping a 13-year-old girl at an MTV Video Music Awards after-party in New York more than two decades ago.
“This case needs to be dismissed, and Mr. Carter’s name needs to be fully cleared,” Spiro said.
The anonymous accuser, identified only as “Jane Doe,” alleged Carter removed her clothes, held her down and raped her while Combs and an unnamed female celebrity watched. She said Combs also raped her as Carter and the woman looked on.
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On Monday, Spiro distanced Carter from Combs, who faces federal criminal charges in New York of racketeering, sex trafficking and other offenses. Combs is behind bars at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center after he was denied bail for a third time last month. His trial is scheduled for May 5 and he has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
“There is no friendship or longtime bond here,” Spiro said. “Just because they knew each other, know each other, that doesn’t mean anything.”
Carter has called the allegations “idiotic” and fought the claims in a lengthy statement.
“These allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!!” the rapper said, in part. “Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree? These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case.”
Spiro, who has asked a judge to deny a request to remain anonymous from the accuser, praised Carter for standing “his ground” and said his team would “continue to seek justice.”
“Mr. Carter speaks for himself, and he speaks from a position of strength because he’s completely innocent and these claims are obviously false,” Spiro said. “But it is upsetting. Nobody wants to hear these things.”
“We expect Mr. Carter to be cleared of this in the coming days,” he added.
The lawyer’s remarks come after the accuser revealed some inconsistencies when she recounted the alleged attack from 24 years ago in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
Among the inconsistencies: The woman said her father picked her up after the alleged sexual assault, but he said he doesn’t recall that. The woman also claims she spoke to a celebrity at the after-party where she said she was sexually assaulted, but that celebrity said he was not in New York at that time. And images from that evening show Carter and Combs at a different location than the one the woman described, although their whereabouts for the entire evening are unclear.
“This incident didn’t happen,” Carter told NBC News in another statement on Friday, “and yet he filed it in court and doubled down in the press,” he added, referring to one of the woman’s attorneys, Texas-based Tony Buzbee. “True Justice is coming. We fight FROM victory, not FOR victory. This was over before it began. This 1-800 lawyer doesn’t realize it yet, but, soon.”
In response to Spiro’s latest comments, Buzbee said he encourages Spiro “to do what he thinks appropriate.”
He said the woman was referred to his firm by another law firm, which drafted the initial complaint. He said four people at his firm have interviewed her and “checked details.” He also said his firm ran a background check on her and asked a “seasoned investigator to vet some details she disclosed to us.”
“Those results were consistent with what the client had told us,” Buzbee said.
On Friday, he said he is continuing to vet the accuser’s claims.
“Our conduct has been beyond reproach and will continue to be,” Buzbee said.
Buzbee has filed several lawsuits in recent months — all have withheld their complainants’ names — accusing Combs of assault and rape. This is the first suit in which he has named another high-profile defendant.
The woman has acknowledged the inconsistencies and said she has “made some mistakes” in recollections of that night in 2000. But she said she stands by her allegations overall. The inconsistencies in her account of the incident do not necessarily mean the allegations are false.
“You should always fight for what happened to you,” the woman, who is now 38, said. “You should always advocate for yourself and be a voice for yourself. You should never let what somebody else did ruin or run your life. I just hope I can give others the strength to come forward like I came forward.”
The woman said she was living in Rochester, New York, in 2000 and was driven to the VMAs by a friend to fulfill a “bucket list” goal.
She did not have a ticket, and she approached various limousine drivers to try to gain access to the show or an after-party.
One driver told her that he worked for Combs and that she “fit what Diddy was looking for,” according to the lawsuit. She said he invited her to a party after the show and told her to return to his car later in the evening after he transported Combs and others to the after-party.
Later, the driver picked her up, the suit said, and after 20 minutes they arrived at a white house with a U-shaped driveway. She said she had to sign a document she believed was a nondisclosure agreement on arrival — and did not receive a copy — to enter the party, which the suit says was filled with celebrities and people doing marijuana and cocaine.
She was offered a drink that made her feel “woozy, lightheaded and felt [like] she needed to lie down,” the lawsuit says, and she went into a room to rest.
Shortly afterward, the suit says, Combs and Carter entered the room with Combs saying, “You are ready to party!”
The suit says that she was able to resist being forced to perform oral sex on Combs by hitting him in the neck and that he “stopped.”
After the alleged assault, the suit says, she “grabbed her clothes” and left. She made her way to a gas station, where she called her father, it says.
The accuser is seeking unspecified damages. The lawsuit is filed under New York’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act.
The federal lawsuit was originally filed in October in the Southern District of New York, listing Combs as a defendant. It was refiled on Dec. 8 to include Carter.
Spiro said Carter was “respectfully seeking either dismissal of the allegations or disclosure of the Plaintiff’s identity.”
In his statement, Carter said he and his wife would have to explain the allegations to their children. “My only heartbreak is for my family,” he said.
“You have made a terrible error in judgement thinking that all ‘celebrities’ are the same,” he added. “I’m not from your world. I’m a young man who made it out of the project of Brooklyn. We don’t play these types of games. We have very strict codes and honor. We protect children.”
In a statement, legal representatives for Combs called the suits “shameless publicity stunts, designed to extract payments from celebrities who fear having lies spread about them, just as lies have been spread about Mr. Combs.”
“As his legal team has said before, Mr. Combs has full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone—man or woman, adult or minor,” the statement read.
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