when a major celebrity just gets accused of raping a minor in a bombshell lawsuit we got to bring in a high-profile litigator enter Ben Shu Johnny Depp's lawyer who famously represented him in a trial with competing claims of abuse we are going to be breaking down right now the new claims and the legal warfare that's happening in the case of Jay-Z welcome to sidebar presented by law on crime I'm Jesse Weber all right so we want to continue this conversation on Jay-Z and this massive lawsuit that he's now facing it is still pretty shocking the
fact that a woman claims when she was 13 years old she was raped by Jay-Z Shawn Carter and Shawn Colmes at a vma's Afterparty back in 2000 and if you haven't been following our coverage of this this was a suit that was originally filed back in October by Texas attorney Tony Busby and it didn't originally name Jay-Z this alleged attacker was only identified as celebrity a but depending on who you asked there might have been a breakdown in the behind the scenes maybe we say negotiations is the right word regarding revolving the suit because Busby
ends up filing a lawsuit on his client's behalf and now he has named Jay-Z as a defendant in this amended complaint now Jay-Z's version of what happened here is that he refused to be what he and his lawyers call extorted or blackmailed by Tony Busby in fact in a statement in response to the lawsuit Jay-Z said in part quote my lawyer received a blackmail attempt called a demand letter from a lawyer named Tony Busby what he had calculated was the nature of these allegations and the public scrutiny would make me want to settle no sir
it had the opposite effect it may 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 and also said in his statement you have made a terrible error in judgment thinking that all celebrities are the same and then later he said I look forward to showing you just how different I am now Busby also responded on X denying that this was the case writing in part quote no one has made any threats Jay-Z's assertions are bogus and laughable instead our firm
sent a standard demand letter seeking a mediation on behalf of a woman who alleges Jay-Z sexually assaulted her as a minor the letter was vetted and approved by our client whose preference was to attempt resolution short of filing a lawsuit this approach is common in these types of cases what you are seeing played out now is a coordinated and desperate effort to focus The public's attention on me personally to avoid attention on the allegations being made by my clients and we learn that Jay-Z is also believed to be the John Doe who recently filed a
lawsuit anonymously against Tony Busby claiming extortion an intentional infliction of emotional distress we didn't know who it was but it seems to be that it was Jay-Z and now there is also this heated back and forth about whether Jing doe in this lawsuit should be able to proceed anonymously in her lawsuit Jay-Z and his legal team are pushing for her to have her reveal herself partly because they say Jay-Z has a right to know his accuser to investigate her claims to challenge her it's only fair Busby counters by saying This is highly sensitive material and
revealing her identity could cause her further trauma also there is a safety concern about her identifying herself and now in an interesting side tidbit which we'll get into a woman allegedly reached out to Jay-Z's legal team explaining her experiences with Tony Busby's Law Firm where she is essentially claiming that she was dropped as a client when she refused to adopt a sexual assault narrative that the firm wanted her to proceed with shocking I'm going to get into that and by the way as an aside let me also say real quick it's not just us here
at long crime that have been covering these Diddy stories and updates for you websites all over the Internet are grabbing readers with headlines like Puff Daddy stays in jail for trying to influence Witnesses woman Su Shawn Colmes for raping her and that is exactly where a platform like ground news comes in so what they are is a small independent team that we actually partner with because they can help us deliver just the facts when we report on stories like this you can go to G n.new sidebar to follow along while I show you how it
works with this Diddy story so we get a quick summary of how Diddy's lawyers claim prosecutors allegedly unlawfully obtained his jail cell notes including attorney client privileged information remember that well based on every source that ground news found on reporting on this the left are clearly dominating coverage making this a potential blind spot for more conservative news consumers but it's not just about who's covering the story it's also about how they're covering it well ground news calculated the majority of these articles come from highly credible sources so you can instantly see which headlines are more
objective and which might be skewing the facts the bottom line here don't let someone else's spin shape your understanding of the truth just head to G Ru n.new sidebar or scan the QR code right there and use our link to save 50% off of the top tier Vantage plan which offers unlimited access it's the same plan that we've been using so thank you to ground news for sponsoring this episode of sidebar I have to bring on one of our favorites renowned litigator trial Attorney Ben Shu who famously represented Johnny Depp in his very high-profile Civil
Trial against Amber herd my goodness I mean what do you want to talk about first you want to first talk about the allegations in the Jay-Z lawsuit before we talk about the legal War that's going on what do you make of the fact that he has been identified uh in this case and the allegations against him good morning Jesse it's great to see you again uh yeah these are shocking uh allegations and uh I think he's put out a very forceful statement against them which I think is is a good move uh both in term
both legally and in terms of PR you you know assuming of course that he is innocent of that I I think he these are the kinds of allegations that one would expect someone falsely accused to push back on extremely strongly which he has now done for people who don't haven't read the complaint let me just give them a sample it reads coms then threw plain of Tor to wall again allegedly 13 years old when this happened comes then threw PL of Tor to wall causing plff to fall plff got up and stumbled at which point
Colmes grabbed her again and threw her on the bed at that point Carter began removing plaintiff's clothes as she grew more and more disoriented and then the complaint says that Jay-Z raped this 13-year-old and then Diddy allegedly raped her too and she claimed she actually fought back hit combs in the neck was able to grab her clothes run out of the room Ben could she win a case like this based purely on her testimony if this is so old you know maybe there's no surveillance maybe there's no text messages maybe there's no forensics could she
win base L on her account of what happened I she could theoretically win if her testimony were especially compelling but I think you put your finger on one of the real weaknesses is that these allegations are ancient one thing that left out to me um is the allegations also include that there was a witness a witness yes you know other than Diddy who a a female another woman her testimony and obviously she will be subpoenaed could be crucial I mean if that testimony corroborated the plaintiff's claims then uh that would be something that would really
be a game Cher but the plth alone I think is going to face some credibility issues especially when you have Jay-Z I mean Diddy the allegations are are pretty widespread but um there haven't been similar allegations about Jay-Z and really sets case apart I believe you're referring to celebrity B this female celebrity who was in that room do you think this person has settled maybe her claims with Tony Busby what do I mean by that if she was present I imagine that Tony Busby might have reached out to her and said listen I can file
a lawsuit against you too because of you being there you were present you were a witness maybe um do you and do you think that this is a person who maybe already settled her claim so that she would be a cooperating witness uh for Tony Busby's case I mean tell me how you think that might work that would be a brilliant move if that's what Busby did because otherwise he is making really you know the worst the harshest kind of allegations and he's signing his name to it I mean he referred to his client vetting
a demand letter well uh sure the client is supposed to vet the the demand letter for for in terms of of the factual allegations but the legal allegations the legal import of that is is the province of the attorney so you can't necessarily just hide behind your client but were he to have made a a deal with celebrity B that would really back stop both his client and himself in terms of his potential exposure or being involved in frivolous litigation but you think celebrity B would would take any kind of deal where they have to
testify and say yeah I was in a room while a 13-year-old was being sexually assaulted and yeah I'm not being sued now because I settled my claims I mean that that either way if this is true and they this third this person knows who celebrity B was I can't even imagine even if they were cooperating witness of some kind that they don't look really really bad from this I totally agree I I think I think that premise is is is is dubious for the reasons you mentioned I mean celebrity B while it would be uh
a terrible thing not to have reported these crimes and they are very serious crimes if in fact they were committed but it's unclear what if any civil liability celebrity B would not have or would have for for not being a Good Samaritan I mean I think the statute on that to the extent that there's any liability for not reporting had long since been passed so I don't think she would have any legal or factual incentive to make such a deal I think her incentive would be uh not to cooperate at all and to deny that
she witnessed any such thing right let's get into a little bit of this legal warfare that's going on what do you make of the fact that Busby revealed Jay-Z as celebrity a based on what he says was a failure to meet on mediation that this was a standard demand letter what do you make of his version of events well I I have one problem I mean he's right in the sense as you know Jesse that it it's it's standard and it's smart to give a potential defendant an opportunity to settle prior to sending a prior
to filing a lawsuit because at that point the plaintiff would have kind of detonated the grenade and forced the defendant in a position where he almost has to fight whereas when you send a demand letter and say that you're interested to talk and settle the matter on a confidential basis that is that is an appropriate standard thing to do assuming that you have a legitimate claim where I think he's on weaker ground is where he is um litigating this in the media and making statements defending himself one of my mentors uh always always told me
never defend yourself defend your client and always remember that you're representing yourself and the only time you answer any allegations against yourself is when a judge is specifically asking you to and I think that that Busby crossed that line in the sense that he's now giving press conferences talking about himself and his own actions when he should be representing his client that's just my opinion but I I think it's I think it's unwise for him to get into a PR War do you think that this is Rises to the level of extortion as Jay-Z's claims
because let me read you a part a portion from one of their filings to coerce Mr Carter into compliance plain if an attorney Buzby imposed an arbitrary deadline in their extortionate demand letter warning Mr Carter that they would take a different course if he did not agree to a confidential mediation to resolve this delicate important matter without even waiting for the deadline provided by the extortion at demand letter to pass attorney bu posted on social media that he intended to file a lawsuit naming Mr Carter and attaching the extortionate demand letter to punish Mr Carter
for seeking redress from a court all along Mr Carter refused to bow to attorney Busby's scheme faced with the choice to either pay an exorbitant sum to silence plain if's wild false allegations of sexual assault risking a reparable harm to his reputation family career and livelihood or face a barrage of baseless lawsuits and financial ruin Mr Carter stood his ground on November 18th 2024 Mr Carter filed complaint against attorney Busby and his Law Firm for his extortionate conduct so a little bit what you said about the media but what do you take about that that
version of events yeah I I don't have any problem with Busby giving a deadline you really have to give a deadline otherwise there's no incentive for the potential defendant to ever respond but what the the problem in this scenario is that he didn't give the defendant the full benefit of the deadline in other words if you give somebody a deadline respon by December 27th you shouldn't say anything until December 27th unless the defendant has already said no we're not going to pay go ahead and file your lawsuit so I I think if you give somebody
a deadline I think you should honor it you shouldn't act prematurely if you go public prematurely you know it's a badge of bad faith whether it is bad faith or not is open to question but it's you know I think if you've got to be true to your word if you want to give him a deadline let them have until the deadline also I want your thoughts real quick on something else Ben you know the idea that Jane Doe should have to reveal her identity and a the whether or not the court will say she
has to reveal her identity and B um is that the proper move from Jay-Z's Camp to do so there's two sides to this Busby says in part sensitive you know details of sexual assault her having to reveal that is incredibly traumatic the media tension on this case would create a chilling effect from other people coming forward comes has made threats of violence in the past so her you know revealing herself could be problematic Jay-Z argues look I have a right to know who my accuser is to research that person people won't come over with helpful
evidence that could help my case my defense if they don't know who this person is the public has a right to know who she is she is the one who filed a lawsuit put her credibility into into issue by voluntarily filing a lawsuit who's right I have fairly strong opinions on this since I've had several clients who've been in that position and I think that Jay-Z is absolutely right on this if you make serious allegations of this nature you shouldn't be able to hide behind the shield of anonymity these are incredibly serious I mean to
me I would rather be accused of murder than than rape of a child if you were going to make these kinds of allegations I think you have to um you have to be revealed now exceptions for that are the ones you mentioned if if this victim alleged victim were were still underage I think there'd be a strong argument for protecting what would be a child but this is an adult woman at this point second e exception is the one you also referenced the possibility of violence now that that's quite real and I think that's something
the judge would have to weigh um although I don't think there's any indication that that any threats have emanated from Jay-Z's Camp right but absence something like that a real showing of potential danger should the plaintiff's name be revealed I think it's absolutely fair for the accuser's name to be mentioned and the reason why I think also in terms of the fairness is that if that person's name is out there then um people may come forward you know if there had been other I had a case where um we did a similar thing that our
client was was was accused of civil of of of sexual battery and we moved the court to have that adult uh plaintiff name the court granted that and when that happened we got all kinds of um Communications from the public at large saying we know this person and it turned out that person had a lot of skeletons in his closet and frankly we would not have had access to that but for you know that information being out there so I think Jay now Jay-Z's slightly different situation because he's got a lot of resources and you
know great lawyers at his disposal but I I think in terms of fairness the presumption should be that a plaintiff should be named and look other courts in other Shan com's cases have ruled that the pl the plaintiffs the Jane Doe's have to reveal their identity Anna Kane is one of the most recent examples of that and by the way if this Jane Doe has to reveal herself it might be a question whether she wants to continue the lawsuit if her name will be public for everybody to see okay before I let you go Ben
have to talk to you about this final update so Jay-Z's Council filed a letter with the court saying that this woman called their offices and she says that she had called Tony Busby's firm regarding allegations of sex trafficking and abuse but she made it clear to them it had nothing to do with Shawn Colmes she said says first the Ferb representative asked her when did you meet Diddy and she reemphasized again my claims aren't about him she said that they encouraged her to proceed anonymously even though she claims she didn't want to they also allegedly
discouraged her from contacting law enforcement and she said she felt pressured to make false claims about being drugged held down physically assaulted and she says when she refused to adopt that narrative buzby's firmed dropped her as a client and the associate who spoke with this woman recounted this conversation in a sworn declaration with the court now Jay-Z's firm says this is further evidence that Jane Doe in Jay-Z's case shouldn't be able to proceed anonymously and that Jay-Z and his team have a right to thoroughly investigate and respond to these allegations now according to TMZ Busby
responded to this saying this is so ridiculous if someone calls our intake and has a viable case that we believe has Merit and we can pursue we will we will pursue it we are current currently pursuing hundreds of cases against individuals other than P Diddy what we won't do is pursue a case that we don't believe has Merit I can't speak to what she told the intake folks to even tell you what this woman claimed if and when she called but then he says we certainly don't need to pressure anyone to pursue a case and
he also uh uh introduced a filing um where he's going to say I'm going to respond in due Court in due time with a memorandum of Law and other appropriative means but he was basically denying this this happened Ben your thoughts well again I think Buzby is talking too much I mean who does he represent does he represent himself or does he represent actual clients I I think these are two separate issues I think this issue really relates more to a potential bar complaint against his firm um I don't know that it will help Jay-Z
that much directly because this smacks to me like propensity evidence in the sense that uh as you know judges don't generally allow evidence of similar or allegedly similar conduct to be introduced in in a particular case so I think it's a bit of apples and oranges I think it's potentially true a real problem for Busby's firm not saying it's true we have no idea but but I think it's a bar complaint issue rather than something that that would help Jay-Z are we in dangerous territory of someone suing someone for defamation because Busby filed another letter
with the court and he said that the correspondence with the court from Jay-Z side is nothing short of defamation hiding behind the thinnest veneer of litigation privilege like I know that there's accusations that are made between attorneys and between you know a defendant and a plaintiff but are we in dangerous territory of defamation suit yes and lawyers have to understand we've had this conversation before in other context lawyers have to understand that they're not immune from defamation liability I mean sure when you're in court or you're or you're you know in a making a court
uh filing there is a qualified privilege and Immunity there but when you step out of the courtroom and you're making statements to the media you are no more immune than anybody else and this is where I think there's a conflation among certain attorneys especially in high-profile matters to forget themselves a little bit and uh again to make statements on their own behalf or even on their client's behalf that are not privileged and that that really compromises the potential um rights of the the client uh because the lawyer is setting himself for herself up for potential
defamation liability and the client Because unless the client repudiates the statement of the lawyer that a client can be sued for defamation as well you know if Jesse Weber which he never would do made a public statement on behalf of your client that was false arguably uh not only you but also your client could be sued well we have a case like that right now so I think again lawyers really need to remember who they're representing uh what their cause is and and to resist the temptation to make public statements that could be problematic it's
getting ugly and it's only been three days or four days since all this came out I'm sure it's just going to get uglier but benchu thank you so much for coming on really really love having your perspective especially on a case like this thank you so much thank you Jesse all right everybody that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar thank you so much for joining us and as always please subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify YouTube wherever you get your podcasts I'm Jesse Weber I'll speak to you next time
