Jay-Z is reportedly planning to move forward with the extortion claims against Houston-based attorney Tony Buzbee after the same judge who threatened to throw the lawsuit out last month changed his mind.
The Superior Court judge indicated at the hearing in Santa Monica, California, that he is now leaning towards allowing the extortion claims in the wake of new evidence being presented in court. According to Court House News, the evidence is a transcript of a conversation between the rapper and two private investigators and a woman who is suing them.
In it, she seemingly concedes that the rapper was never involved in her s*xual assault, but Buzbee allegedly "pushed" her to name him as a defendant. According to Judge Mark Epstein's 49-page tentative ruling, the evidence, should it be considered, supports the notion that Buzbee may have been extorting Jay-Z.
Everything we know about Jay-Z's extortion claim against Tony Buzbee so far:
According to Rolling Stone, the conversation amid a revised lawsuit filed by an unnamed woman going by Jane Doe in December, who claims that Jay-Z and Sean "Diddy" Combs r*ped her. She claimed the incident took place at an award show afterparty when she was 13 years old. The conversation, which took place on February 21, saw the woman allegedly saying:
“It was more Diddy, but Buzbee brought Jay-Z, into it.”
When probed if she was alluding to the Roc Nation founder, whose real name is Shawn Carter, who was at the afterparty but “didn’t have anything to do with any s*xual acts towards you,” she said, according to the outlet:
“Yeah. He was the one that kind of pushed me towards going forward with him, with Jay-Z."
According to Court House News, Judge Mark's ruling reads as follows:
"If the evidence can be considered — and the court believes it can be considered for this motion — it supports not only the defamation cause of action but also the extortion cause of action. For if one accepts Doe's statements to the investigators at face value, then she at least inferentially did not authorize the settlement letter to be sent or even conclude that she was going to sue Carter at the time the Letters were mailed. Without a present intent to bring a lawsuit, the litigation privilege will fail."
He added:
"Without a client's authority to send the demand letter, the court is far from confident that the Letters do not start to look more like extortion than an attempt to settle a civil suit."
At the time of writing, the ruling has yet to be made final, and court proceedings are expected to continue next month.
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