By Kayla Olaya and Karl Quinn
High-profile rapper and billionaire Jay-Z has denied raping a 13-year-old girl and says he will expose the lawyer who filed the accusation “for the fraud you are”.
Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z, issued a lengthy statement, via his management company Roc Nation on social media, rejecting an accusation reportedly filed by lawyer Tony Buzbee.
Rapper Jay-Z denied the allegation. Credit: Paul Rovere
Buzbee levelled the claims against Carter in a refiled version of the civil lawsuit brought against Sean “Diddy” Combs, in which the disgraced rapper was accused of more than 150 accounts of sexual abuse, including against a 10-year-old boy. Combs has also denied the allegations against him.
Carter has been named in the new filing by a victim using the pseudonym “Jane Doe”, who alleges the assault occurred after she was driven to an MTV Video Music Awards after-party in 2000, when she was 13 years old, according to NBC.
The alleged victim said she was offered a drink, after which she began to feel light-headed. Shortly after that, NBC reports, Combs and Carter are said to have entered the room, with Combs saying, “You are ready to party!”
Jay-Z said he and his wife, Beyoncé, would have no choice but “to sit our children down … and explain the cruelty and greed of people”.Credit: AP
The woman alleges that Carter removed her clothes, held her down and raped her, while Combs and an unnamed female celebrity watched. She says Combs also raped her as Carter and the woman looked on.
Carter has categorically denied the allegations, labelling them a “blackmail attempt” that had been calculated to “make me want to settle”.
“No, sir,” he said in his post. “It had the opposite effect. It made me want to expose you for the fraud you are in a very public fashion. So no, I will not give you one red penny.”
Diddy at one of his infamous white parties in 2007.Credit: Getty Images
Labelling the accusations “heinous”, Carter suggested that they put in “a criminal complaint, not a civil one”. Though a criminal case carries the risk of a jail sentence if the accused is found guilty whereas a civil case carries only the risk of financial punishment, the burden of proof is much higher than in a civil one.
“Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away,” Carter continued. “Would you not agree these alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case?”
Combs was charged in September with racketeering, sex trafficking and other offences, which he denies, and is being held in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Centre.
The allegations were typical of Buzbee, claimed Carter, labelling him a lawyer prone to “a pattern of these type of theatrics”, who was an “ambulance chaser in a cheap suit”, and a man who displays “neither honour nor dignity”.
This masthead sought a response from Buzbee.
Carter added that his “heart and support goes out to true victims” but his primary concern was for his own children, who would be exposed to “inexplicable degrees of malice meant to destroy families and human spirit”. He and his wife, Beyoncé, would have no choice but “to sit our children down … and explain the cruelty and greed of people”.
The civil lawsuit that names Carter was originally filed in October in New York, naming only Combs as defendant. It was refiled on Sunday to also include Carter.
More than two dozen lawsuits have been filed against Combs, 13 of them by Buzbee.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
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