Sean “Diddy” Combs has had sufficient of what his authorized workforce describes as a “decades-long onslaught of frivolous and vexatious lawsuits” filed by Michigan inmate Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith.
The Hip-Hop mogul additionally asks the court docket to impose restrictions barring the inmate from submitting extra lawsuits with out judicial approval and to have Cardello-Smith cowl his mounting authorized bills.
Filed by Cardello-Smith, who’s serving a decades-long sentence for rape, the lawsuit alleges that almost 30 years in the past, Diddy assaulted him in Michigan and calls for over $400 million in damages.
The case gained important consideration when a choose issued a $100 million default judgment and prohibited Diddy from promoting his Los Angeles mansion after failing to seem for a listening to.
That judgment, nevertheless, was later vacated after Diddy’s authorized workforce efficiently argued the inmate had altered key court docket paperwork to acquire the order.
“This barrage of fabricated claims should come to an finish,” stated Diddy’s legal professional, David Fink, in court docket paperwork. “Plaintiff’s frequent filings clearly point out he has no intention of stopping his meritless assaults.”
In accordance with Diddy’s authorized workforce, Cardello-Smith has filed a minimum of 173 federal lawsuits over time, with many dismissed as baseless.
The inmate has repeatedly tried to attract celebrities, akin to Jennifer Lopez, into his claims, even itemizing Lopez as a deliberate witness on this specific case.
Legal professionals for Diddy argue the accusations haven’t any foundation in legislation or reality, labeling them “fantastical fabrications.”
The continued authorized battle took one other uncommon flip with Cardello-Smith’s declare that Diddy had visited him in jail to barter a settlement—a press release that jail data contradict.
Moreover, he alleged that he served authorized paperwork to Diddy years earlier than submitting the lawsuit, one other assertion that Diddy’s attorneys have described as a fantasy.
Diddy’s authorized workforce is requesting harsh measures to deal with what it sees as an abuse of the court docket system.
Along with in search of dismissal of the present case, they’ve referred to as for sanctions beneath federal legislation, together with a everlasting injunction requiring Cardello-Smith to acquire court docket approval earlier than initiating any future lawsuits.
Any such court docket order, known as a prefiling injunction, is often used to curb serial litigants with a historical past of submitting frivolous claims.
“Plaintiff has brought about important authorized charges and prices to be incurred by Mr. Combs,” Fink acknowledged within the court docket filings, including that the lawsuit represented a “calculated abuse” of authorized sources.
Diddy’s attorneys additionally search financial sanctions to recuperate these authorized charges, emphasizing the pressure imposed by Cardello-Smith’s historical past of unfounded authorized actions.
Resulting from his historical past of repeated, meritless claims, the filings highlighted that Cardello-Smith has been barred in a number of courts from submitting lawsuits with out prepayment of charges.
Diddy’s authorized workforce argued this sample demonstrates a necessity for comparable restrictions within the present case.
By means of this movement, Diddy’s legal professionals intention not solely to deliver this case to an in depth but in addition to stop future authorized obstacles that may come up from what they describe as an “ongoing sample of harassment” by Cardello-Smith.
The federal court docket has not but dominated on Diddy’s movement, leaving the following chapter of the protracted authorized drama unsure.
