Sean “Diddy” Combs fired back at the male prisoner who is suing him over an alleged 1997 sexual assault after he presented an alleged witness in court, a new report claimed.
In court documents obtained by In Touch Weekly, Diddy, 54, criticized Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith's "frivolous lawsuit." According to the mogul's team, Derrick was a "serial pro se litigant" who recently raised the damages he was pursuing in the case to $400 million.
Diddy claimed that Derrick's lawsuit featured "ludicrous allegations." Derrick said he encountered Diddy while a bartender in Detroit in 1997. He stated that the musician extended an invitation to him to attend a hotel sex party.
Derrick stated that Diddy assaulted him at the gathering. He stated that the musician provided him with a beverage and informed him that he had "added a little something" to it.
The prisoner asserted that he fell unconscious. He stated that he awoke to the sight of Diddy engaging in sexual intercourse with a woman. Derrick claimed that Diddy gazed at him and said, "I also did this to you!"
He even accused Diddy of collaborating with government officials to conceal the alleged offenses in his lawsuit.
“Incredibly, in two different complaints filed in two different courts, [Derrick] alleges that this purported assault occurred in two different counties on the same day,” Diddy’s lawyer said. Additionally, according to Diddy's team, the claims were brought years after the statute of limitations.
“Because the assault allegedly occurred in June 1997, any claim [Derrick] might have had expired in June 2000—more than two decades before [Derrick] commenced this litigation,” the mogul’s attorney argued.
Derrick, a convicted felon and sexual predator, has been sentenced to 14 counts of sexual assault and kidnapping over the past 26 years, according to Diddy's counsel, who previously disclosed the lawsuit to TMZ. Diddy has reportedly never heard of him, nor has he been served with any lawsuit.
In case you missed it, Derrick, incarcerated in a Michigan facility, recently presented a purported witness in court. Derrick submitted an affidavit for his fellow prisoner, Dephonso Wilson.
Dephonso asserted that he observed a meeting between Diddy and Derrick after the purported assault.
He claimed that a government official was present and had issued a threat to Derrick to remain silent.
Erica A. Wolff, Diddy's attorney, claimed that the allegations in this new filing and the claims in this litigation are entirely false and absurd, as per CNN.
The notion that Derrick has recently located a key witness who is incarcerated in the same correctional facility where he resides, some twenty-seven years after the alleged events at issue, is, to put it charitably, as implausible on its face as Derrick’s allegation that Diddy promised to give him forty-nine percent of Diddy's assets in exchange for $150,000.
"We are certain that the court will grant our pending motion to dismiss, as Cardello-Smith's Complaint is entirely without merit,” the counsel concluded.
