A federal judge has issued a detailed ruling explaining why he sided with Sean “Diddy” Combs and dismissed a $60 million civil sexual assault lawsuit filed by “Making the Band 2” contestant Sara Rivers.
The initial decision tossing the case – which came six weeks after Diddy was largely acquitted on federal criminal charges – was another big win for the embattled rapper. But it was issued without any explanation of the judge’s reasoning.
In a 28-page opinion issued late Tuesday, Judge Jed Rakoff laid out his reason: That Rivers had filed her case far too late. He said the lawsuit – claiming sexual harassment and groping during the filming of the 2000s MTV reality show – was clearly filed years after the statutes of limitations had expired.
“It is important to remember the many positive purposes served by statutes of limitations,” the judge wrote. “They promote justice by preventing surprises through plaintiffs’ revival of claims that have been allowed to slumber until evidence has been lost, memories have faded, and witnesses have disappeared.”
Judge Rakoff said Rivers had invoked a “hodgepodge” of arguments for why the time limits should be lifted on her case, including that she was afraid of retaliation from Combs and his business empire. But the judge said that wasn’t enough.
“While Rivers does allege that she experienced a general fear of retaliation preventing her from speaking out against Combs, general claims of psychological stress cannot give rise to duress tolling,” the judge said, referring to the technical term for such a delay.
The judge pointed to a recent ruling in a separate case filed against Diddy by an Atlanta man named DeWitt Gilmore, who sued over claims that he was assaulted outside a nightclub by Diddy and his entourage in 1996. In that case, a judge ruled that a “culture of intimidation” by Combs was not enough to explain the decades-long delay. “The same reasoning applies here with at least equal force,” Rakoff wrote.
Rivers, who became a member of hip-hop group Da Band, sued Combs in earlier this year, claiming he had cornered her in a recording studio and “ran his left hand across her breasts.” She also claimed that he later blackballed her in the music industry in retaliation for rebuffing his advances.
The case was one of dozens of civil lawsuits filed against Combs over the past two years alongside his blockbuster federal criminal case. Following a two-month trial, Diddy was acquitted last month on the most serious charges of racketeering (RICO) and sex-trafficking in that case, though he was found guilty on two lesser counts of interstate prostitution.
Many of the other civil lawsuits remain pending, and Combs still faces sentencing on the convictions in October, where he could be sentenced to several years in prison.
In Tuesday’s decision, Judge Rakoff also explained why he had dismissed most of Rivers’ claims permanently, saying that the case was not “a close question” that could be fixed by her lawyers: “The vast majority of the conduct … took place over twenty years ago, whereas the most generous limitations period applicable to any of Rivers’ claims is ten years,” the judge wrote.
But he also explained in detail why he had deferred ruling on the accusation that Combs violated New York City’s Gender Motivated Violence Protection Act, citing pending appeals cases on key questions about how that law functions.
“Ruling on what this Court considers to be a close question arising under the New York Constitution risks ruling at odds with the [the future appellate] decision and delaying resolution of the action further,” Rakoff wrote.