Law&Crime Sidebar - P. Diddy's Team Slams Sex Abuse Accuser's Lawyer in New Complaint

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Attorneys who represent record labels and music executives named as co defendants in a lawsuit against rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs are asking the court to sanction Tyrone Blackburn. Blackburn represents several people filing civil claims against Combs, including music producer Rodney Jones, also known as Lil Rod Jones. But the defendants’ attorneys claim Blackburn knowingly violated court rules by including allegations he knew were unfounded. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down the latest filings. PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’ve used Incognito mode in Google’s Chrome browser, find out if you have a claim in a few clicks by visiting https://www.incognitoclaims.com/sidebar/?v=sb12HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. The ongoing civil lawsuits against rapper and music mogul Sean Diddy Combs, as well as recording labels and music industry executives, are bringing a different kind of legal battle to light. Lawyer versus lawyer. Hundreds of pages of filings between the attorney for Little Rod Jones and the attorney for some of the defendants has just been released,

and we're going to break down what's going on. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Hey, everybody, this is a law and crime legal alert. Google Incognito tracked users browsing data, without their knowledge. Yep. Well, Mass Tort Alliance, one of our legal sponsors, is helping users file for compensation due to Google users' privacy issues surrounding Google Incognito. So if you've used Google Incognito any time since 2016, you can start your claim in less

than 10 questions at incognito claims.com slash sidebar. Okay, before we even get started talking about Sean Diddy Combs, I got to tell you something else. I went to CrimeCon this past weekend in Nashville, Tennessee. At me and Jeanette Levy, our whole law and crime team. And I got to tell you, you know what was amazing, more than anything, because it's a great experience, but you know what was really amazing? Getting a chance to meet you. So many of you out there who watch us here on Sidebar, who listen to us, you came over to us,

and you were so kind and complimentary of the work our team does here on Sidebar. And I just have to say again, thank you. Thank you for watching us. Thank you for trusting us. we will make sure to keep providing this content for you. And again, I can't wait for the next one to meet all of you in person. Okay, so now with that, let's talk about Sean Diddy Combs. It has been months since Combs' homes were rated by federal agents, his name appearing in multiple high-profile lawsuits.

We covered so much of this here on Sidebar. And while there certainly has been drama along the way, now we are seeing something else play out. the attorney for several of the plaintiffs in these Combs lawsuits is fighting back and it is something to see and I'm going to tell you big picture why it all matters but first for anyone who's been following this this name will sound very familiar tyrone Blackburn we have talked a lot about him and as I said he represents some of the people who have been suing Sean Combs And he is very, very interesting, not only because he's spearheading a lot of this litigation against the music mogul, but because his lawsuits include very pointed, colorful language. For example, in one lawsuit from a woman named Grasso Markey who claims that Combs' son Christian assaulted her when she was working as a steward on a private yacht, Blackburn wrote in this filing, quote, defendant C. Combs is a 25-year-old auto-tuned and heavily edited rapper.

Unfortunately, as the saying has it, the apple does not fall far from the trade. Defendant Sean Combs, who has also been accused of several acts of sexual assault, rape, sexual violence, and drugging, among other deplorable conduct, is the father of defendant C. Combs, who is seemingly taken after his father and the family business of reckless partying, drugging others, sexual violence, and other illegal conduct. Yeah, so you can see he kind of has a certain dramatic flare to his filings, but Mr. Blackburn has also come into the spotlight a bit for other reasons. You see, not only has he been criticized by opposing counsel, which we're going to get into, but a federal judge referred him to the grievance committee in New York. United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York, Denise Coat, submitted a referral to the New York Federal Court grievance committee, claiming that there were issues with Blackburn in five cases.

She wrote in one of these filings, quote, A reasonable inference from Blackburn's pattern of behavior is that he improperly files cases in federal court to garner media attention, embarrassed defendants with salacious allegations, and pressure defendants to settle quickly. Well, with all of that, now Tyrone Blackburn is fighting back. Not necessarily with the judge. He claims he already issued a response regarding that issue. But what we're talking about now is more specifically with respect to Sean Combs, because

he is fighting back against the defendants in one of these lawsuits from filing sanctions. against him. Let me explain. So Tyrone Blackburn represents Rodney Littlerod Jones, who sued Combs, Combs-affiliated companies, and others, including actor Cuba Gooding Jr. Jones alleges sexual assault, harassment, sex trafficking. As part of the lawsuit, Jones was suing Motown Records, Universal Music Group, UMG, and Lucian Grange, the CEO of UMG. Collectively, they're known as the UMG defendants. We're going to be saying that a lot. Now, Interestingly, these defendants, or the attorney who represents these defendants in a filing wrote, quote, plaintiff had also named Universal Music Group as a defendant, but there is no such

juridical entity. Universal Music Group is an umbrella name commonly used to refer to all of the various companies and record labels that are encompassed within UMG Recordings, Inc. I therefore assume that plaintiff has misnamed Universal Music Group intending to actually name UMG Recordings, Inc, and I will refer to Universal Music Group herein as UMG Recordings, Inc. Okay, so it would not be great if you get the name wrong of one of the defendants, but putting that aside with that, Jones alleges that all of these entities are liable for the abuse that he suffered at the hands of Sean Combs. The idea is that all of these defendants are part of this illegal criminal enterprise in

violation of RICO or racketeering law, making money by forcing and threatening people like Jones to transport drugs and guns, solicit minors, and sex workers, and make music without properly paying individuals like Jones, that these UMG defendants and other affiliated companies should have been monitoring or warning or supervising what Combs and his associates were allegedly doing, but instead they just wanted to enrich themselves. Now, Jones, despite all of that, through Blackburn, ultimately decided to drop the case against the UMG defendants.

And that's the issue. Based upon new filings for Mr. Blackburn, it seems that there was an agreement here between him and opposing counsel to drop the claims against these specific defendants as long as the defense counsel didn't file a sanctions motion against him and Mr. Jones. And this is where it gets very thorny. Again, I'm going to explain why this is all important in the grand scheme. But Mr. Blackburn just filed a declaration with the court where he explains what's going on. And a declaration is basically a statement you make under penalty of perjury.

So, yeah, don't lie. Now, in his own declaration, Blackburn wrote, quote, On May 10, 2024, I emailed Donald Zakarin, counsel for the UMG defendants, to inform him of the plaintiff's decision to dismiss the case against them. I sent Zakaran my proposed notice of dismissal. Zekaren insisted on drafting a completely different notice of voluntary dismissal and declaration. I filed the document prepared by Zakanan as an extension of good faith. Now, when you read this document, it seems that Blackburn is agreeing that there is no legal or factual basis for the allegations against these UMG defendants.

Wow. Why? Well, Blackburn explains in his declaration that his team had spent extensive time researching and investigating the validity of Sean Combs' signature on this agreement between Love Records, Combs, and Motown. It says that they pulled over 40 examples of Combs signature from agreements. We even secured the services of a handwriting expert who confirmed our suspicions that Combs did not sign the agreement with Motown. As a result, Plaintiff Jones felt that Motown and the UMG defendants were more than likely victims of fraud perpetrated by Combs, and it would be impossible to hold them equally liable for the harm Combs visited upon Mr. Jones. So here Blackburn appears to be saying we did more research into this connection between the record labels and Combs

and found that they might actually be victims of a larger scheme by Combs and maybe they shouldn't be on the hook for what Combs allegedly did. I think it would also be a question of if you present that at trial, perhaps a jury would find these defendants sympathetic and Jones might actually lose. So Blackburn says we discovered all this. Now, he says before we discovered all this, Mr. Zakarin had filed a notice that he'd be asking for sanctions against me, Mr. Blackburn, and my client, Mr. Jones. And that is a big deal. When we talk about sanctions, we're talking about monetary penalties for some egregious behavior. Here, Zakaran is asking for sanctions pursuant to Rule 11 under the federal rules, which basically says you can't file a pleading or a motion or a paper for an improper purpose. You need to have some basis in

support for what you're alleging, basis in law. In fact, you can't file frivolous claims or arguments. And that makes sense, right? You can't use the legal system as an unfair weapon. So Zaccaren is claiming that Mr. Blackburn made a lot of wild accusations in Jones lawsuits that weren't necessarily supported by facts or evidence. And this complaint was filed purely to harass and defame the defendants and to garner media attention for Jones. And this motion that was asking for sanctions against Blackburn and Jones included a sworn declaration from Zakharin. And one of the things he says is, quote, I saw it at the very outset of this case on March 4, 2024 to explain to Mr. Blackburn, that his allegations against UMG were

factually baseless and that there was also no legal merit to the claims. Had he conducted a proper examination of the facts and the law, he could not have filed the FAC, first amended complaint, which would have spared my clients the hundreds of thousands of dollars and unnecessary legal fees and expenses that this action has now cost them. And one of the filings, Zagarin explains, you claim that Sir Lucian Grange and Ms. Habdomerium, that's Ethiopia, Habdomerium, the former chairwoman and CEO of Motown, visited Combs homes in Los Angeles and Miami in the evenings, and both would disappear for hours in Mr. Combs' bedrooms, aside from the absurd oddity of the identical alleged behavior

by two individuals separately on apparently separate occasions, the entire story about their attendance at any events at Mr. Combs' homes or any listening parties is completely fabricated. Sir Lucian Grange has never been to Mr. Combs' homes in L.A. or Miami, and never attended or sponsored any listening parties at any of Mr. Combs' homes and was not present at any writer's camps. Thus, everything alleged about both Sir Lucian Grange's supposed knowledge of illicit and illegal activities engaged in by Mr. Combs and others are categorically false. And there are hundreds and hundreds of pages in these memo filings, but it kind of gives you an idea of the accusations against Blackburn and Jones, but especially Mr. Blackburn, right?

And there are also sworn declarations from a few of the defendants I mentioned, including Ms. Habtermarium and Mr. Grange, and we're going to give you a sample of those. So in her statement, Habdumarium says, being falsely accused of criminal conduct is deeply upsetting to me. I did know wrong. I never saw or participated in any alleged racketeering enterprise, and I never saw aided or bedded or tried to conceal any sex trafficking activity. And haptomerian claims that Blackburn offered to drop her from the lawsuit if she signed

a declaration, but she says the narrative that he provided in that was completely. completely false, so she refused to sign it. Lucian Grange provided a similar sworn statement, and right off the bat, he pointed out something very important. As the second amended complaint admits, I am a resident of California, not New York. As I will detail below, I engaged in no activity in New York whatsoever with respect to this matter. So that would essentially mean that there's a jurisdiction issue.

He shouldn't be a part of a New York lawsuit. And he also says that, quote, none of these allegations are supported by a single fact. Okay, so now you know what the sanctions are all about. We now have to talk about Monday because on Monday, Mr. Blackburn fired back at Saccaron in his own hundreds of pages. Even the exhibits have exhibits. So again, we're going to give you an overview. So Blackburn in his declaration says, look, we received this email from opposing counsel back

on April 26, 2024. That email, by the way, is included in these filings. And in that email from opposing counsel to Blackburn, It says, quote, you have 21 days to withdraw all claims asserted against the UMG defendants with prejudice, meaning you can't refile the claims, your failure to do so will result in the filing of this motion with the court. So that's, what, May 17, 2024? Blackburn says, we did that.

We filed the documents. We dismissed the claims. We thought we were in the clear. But Blackburn says Zakaron double crossed us by filing a revamped version of the rule 11 sanctions motion anyway. Blackburn uses words like unethical gamanship, double crossed, disguised, all to describe this alleged move by Zakarin. He makes the claim that Zakaran tried to disguise this as a motion under a different statute, but it's basically the same thing, which, by the way, is maybe not that surprising that Zakaran did this because in an email to

Blackburn, Zakaran, Zakaran wrote, you seem to believe that having filed three separate complaints over the past two months, each of which is filled with offensively false accusations of criminal conduct that you either knew were completely false or as to which you were completely indifferent to whether they were true or false. You can skate away unscathed by your conduct simply by proposing terms on which you would dismiss the current version of the complaint with prejudice. You appear indifferent to the harm you and your client have caused to completely innocent people and companies.

But Blackburn goes back to say, we agree. to dismiss the claim so you wouldn't try to sanction us. And Blackburn states, look, I honestly should have known better than to believe that Sakarin would act with integrity. Blackburn then goes on to defend himself saying he didn't act in bad faith when he filed this lawsuit against the UMG defendants, that this lawsuit was instituted because the UMG defendants knowingly conducted business with Combs, whom they knew or should have known was a violent, deceptive, morally flawed individual.

He says this lawsuit was not instituted for some improper purpose. but rather for the very legitimate purpose of recovering damages for the UMG defendants' reckless, self-serving decision to enter a partnership with Combs to develop love records. He says that what he was doing was based on a reasonable investigation. He claims he spoke with witnesses that Mr. Jones had corroborating evidence like text messages, video recordings, and it really should be no surprise that these defendants were added to this lawsuit given what Blackburn says is Combs' notorious history. that he's facing eight lawsuits, accusing him of rape and sex trafficking.

And Blackburn actually doubles down on this, and he's like, you know what? Every claim that Plaintiff Jones has raised has turned out to be true. Jones alleged that Brendan Paul, Combs, associate, was his drug meal. And guess what? Paul gets arrested on March 25th on drug charges. Jones says that Combs is a sex trafficker, and then the raids happen. Blackburn says all of this is really about the fact that the UMG defendants want to separate themselves as much from Combs. but this is their own fault.

In fact, he uses this language. Remember I talked about colorful language? Before November 16th, 20203, that was the date when Cassandra Ventura filed her lawsuit against Sean Combs. This is his ex-girlfriend. Defendants were willing to crawl over hot coals to touch the hem of Combs garment. Yeah, you can see that there's really no love lost between these attorneys. And in fact, there's a lot of email correspondence between Blackburn and Zakarian. And it gets kind of juicy.

I mean, in an email dated on April 11th, Blackburn writes, Donald, you can attack my character all you want, but your client has unclean hands. I've spoken to many recently former UMG employees, some of whom were close to your beloved Lucian. I also know for a fact that your client has engaged in questionable and unethical business practices for years, if not decades. I will not put all I know in this email, but I do know that you, sir, are doing your client a huge disservice. Now, in terms of Zakarin, one of the things that he has accused Blackburn of was not answering his phone and seemingly disappearing. In one of his replies, Zakaran says, your problem in responding is not due to a lack of information or knowledge on your part, but due to the fact that you filed knowingly false complaints without any factual or a legal basis and your desperate effort to manufacture some way to avoid dismissal and Rule 11 sanctions will be quite obvious to the judge when you seek further time and discuss.

Oh, and you should be aware that a frivolous motion for sanctions is itself sanctionable. Mr. Blackburn, the first rule of self-preservation is when you're in a hole of your own creation. Stop digging. You obviously have not yet learned that lesson. You're going to find it a painful lesson here, but you have earned that pain. Wow. Heated. It's like they should wrestle one another.

My gosh. But again, this is kind of a summary of some back and forth. but I'm going to tell you now why this matters. I'm going to give you the big picture. Why do we care about this? Why do we care about Tyrone Blackbird? I'm going to tell you why. This all goes to one thing and one thing only.

Credibility. The credibility of these accusations, the strength of these claims is what Rodney Jones and other plaintiffs being represented by Blackburn saying, is it true? Yes, Sean Combs is facing multiple lawsuits. Yes, the feds raided his homes and there appears to be an ongoing federal investigation that could possibly result in criminal charges. But Combs hasn't been charged. He hasn't been found liable in court yet. Yes, there is that atrocious video published by CNN purportedly from 2016, allegedly showing Combs savagely beating his ex-girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, in a hotel hallway, so vital.

talked about how vital that can be in a future case, but despite all of that, we have to be careful to assess each claim and each allegation and each case separately. Just because one thing is true or one thing comes out doesn't mean everything is true. So when you see this back and forth between Saccaren and Blackburn and you see the light that has been cast upon this attorney and the accusations levied against Blackburn and Jones, we have to always ask, does this weaken their case? What will come of this? I mentioned how several notable people listed in Jones lawsuit, not even named as defendants, but just mentioned, have denied certain allegations. So again, what is true? What can be proven in court?

Is this credible? Will a jury or judge accept these allegations? Have these cases been filed for the right reasons. We will see. That's all we have for you here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you're getting podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. Apple Podcasts or Spotify.