A judge has thrown out Jay-Z’s extortion and defamation lawsuit against Houston-based attorney Tony Buzbee, who filed r*pe allegations against the rapper.
Buzbee’s client alleged that Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs raped her when she was just 13 years old at an after-party following the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards.
Jay-Z denied those allegations, and the lawsuit was subsequently dismissed; however, he then sued Buzbee for extortion and defamation.
The judge says Jay-Z’s extortion claims must be thrown out as Buzbee was within his rights as a lawyer to demand a settlement payment from the rapper before suing him for rape last year.
“Selling silence for money in the civil context is not extortion; it is a settlement with a non-disclosure element,” Judge Epstein wrote, and that Buzbee’s actions do not meet the “actual malice” standard.
Jay-Z has already filed an appeal.
“We are surprised and disappointed by this ruling which turns on the misapplication of California law on the admissibility of the investigators’ statements,” says Jay-Z’s attorney Alex Spiro in a statement shared with Billboard. “What does it say about our justice system if someone can knowingly bring about completely false claims of the most heinous nature imaginable against an innocent individual and get away with it on a technicality?”
