Universal Music Group fires back at producer’s Diddy sexual assault lawsuit

Diddy has been the subject of multiple allegations in recent months, with record label UMG named in a lawsuit by producer Rodney Jones

Lawyers acting for record label giant Universal Music Group are pushing for their clients to be dismissed from the case brought by producer Rodney Jones, who has accused Sean “Diddy” Combs of sexual abuse.

The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in New York in February, and accuses the music mogul of repeated instances of unsolicited groping and sexual touching. It also claims that Jones was made to work in a bathroom while Diddy showered and walked around naked, and that he was forced to sleep with sex workers.

Diddy’s lawyer branded the events described in the suit as “pure fiction” and said his team had “overwhelming, indisputable proof” that Jones’s claims “are complete lies”.

Donald Zakarin, representing UMG Recordings and its Motown Records division, is now asking the court to have the allegations against the label and former executives, including UMG’s CEO Lucian Grainge, dismissed.

In a letter to the judge seen by Fox News, he called Jones’s inclusion of UMG in the lawsuit an attempt “to fit a square peg in a round hole” as he distanced Diddy, whose homes in Los Angeles and Miami were raided by Homeland Security last week, from the label.

Jones’s lawyer, Tyrone Blackburn, first amended the lawsuit last month to backtrack on allegations involving UMG and its executives.

Zakarin has asked the judge to deny Blackburn’s request to file a second amended complaint with additional revisions, arguing: “The motion to amend should be denied as futile, so the motion to dismiss can be properly addressed.”

Diddy has denied the allegations by producer Rodney Jones (Getty Images)

Included in UMG’s latest filings are two sworn statements from record executives who dispute Jones’s version of events, and a denial by UMG that it has an ownership stake in Diddy’s Love Records label, where Jones worked for around a year.

Jones has blamed the record label for lax security at a 2022 writing workshop, where he alleged that a shooting took place and that Diddy and his crew forced him to lie about it.

UMG countered in court that Diddy or one of his companies involved in organising the workshop should have been responsible for any security at the event, Fox News reports.

Diddy, who has not been formally charged or accused by federal prosecutors of any crime, has faced a string of abuse allegations in recent months.

In November last year, his former partner, R&B singer Casandra Ventura, who performs monomyously as Cassie, accused Diddy of raping her in 2018 as well as beating her and forcing her into “unwanted sexual encounters with male sex workers”.

Diddy with Cassie in 2006 (Alamy)

Her lawsuit was settled the day after she filed for an undisclosed sum. Cassie said in a statement that she had chosen to “resolve this matter amicably,” while Diddy’s attorney said the settlement was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing” and did not change the fact that he denied the allegations.

That same month, another lawsuit by an anonymous plaintiff alleged that Diddy and singer-songwriter Aaron Hall had raped her and a friend in 1990 or 1991 after they met at an MCA Records event in New York.

A month later, he was hit by a lawsuit that claimed he had drugged and gang-raped a 17-year-old girl, identified anonymously as Jane Doe, in 2003. She accused him of plying her with drugs and alcohol at his New York studio then raping her along with two associates.

The lawsuit accused Diddy of a “sex trafficking scheme” in which she was flown by private jet from her home in Michigan to New York.

Diddy called the claims “sickening” and said his accusers were “looking for a quick payday”.

“Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged,” he said in a statement. “I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”

Members of the public and the media gather outside Diddy’s LA home on 25 March, as Homeland Security agents raid the property (AFP via Getty Images)

The raids on Diddy’s two properties last week were reportedly in connection with a federal sex trafficking investigation. Through his lawyer, Diddy described the actions of agents as a “gross overuse of military-force” and once again insisted that he is innocent of any wrongdoing.

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