Hip-hop mogul Jay-Z appears to be making headway in his legal defense against serious allegations from over two decades ago. On January 2, Judge Analisa Torres gave the green light for his legal team to proceed with a motion to dismiss the case brought by an Alabama woman.
The case centers on disturbing allegations from the plaintiff, who’s filing under the name Jane Doe. She claims Jay-Z, along with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, assaulted her at an MTV Music Awards afterparty in September 2000 when she was 13 years old. Jay-Z’s powerhouse attorney Alex Spiro isn’t wasting time. In court documents filed December 30, his team highlighted several key issues they believe warrant dismissal.
Perhaps most crucially, they point out that the law under which the plaintiff is suing – the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act – wasn’t even on the books when the alleged incident occurred.
“The GMV Law was not enacted until December 19, 2000, three months after the claimed conduct,” Jay-Z’s legal team argued, adding that applying it retroactively would violate both state and federal due process protections. The judge’s ruling sets up a clear timeline: Jay-Z’s team must submit their dismissal motion by February 6.
The accuser’s lawyer, Tony Buzbee, who filed an objection on December 31, has until February 28 to respond. Jay-Z’s team then gets until March 14 for any final reply. Law journalist Meghann Cuniff, who’s been following the case closely, noted that while judges must treat alleged facts as true when considering dismissal motions, the arguments typically center on legal technicalities like statutes of limitations.
The case took an interesting turn when Jay-Z’s lawyers revealed they’d sent the plaintiff a letter on December 19 outlining various issues with the case, including technical problems and expired deadlines. According to their filing, the plaintiff failed to address these concerns within the required five-business-day window, which ended December 27.
