A person that sued American rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs over an alleged sexual assault has received $100m (£76.6m) by default after Combs failed to reply.
Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, 51, accused Combs of drugging him and sexually assaulting him at a celebration in Detroit, Michigan, in 1997. Attorneys for Combs have denied the allegations.
Cardello-Smith is a convicted felon at present serving a jail sentence and is thought for his lengthy historical past of submitting civil lawsuits, in response to an area newspaper.
Attorneys for Combs stated Cardello-Smith was committing “fraud on the courtroom” and advised the BBC that the rapper will combat the ruling.
Courts concern default judgements in opposition to folks when they don’t reply to a lawsuit.
Combs and his legal professionals advised the BBC they’d not been conscious of the lawsuit as a result of Combs was not correctly served discover of it, and that they are going to be searching for to vacate Monday’s judgment.
The lawsuit is amongst a string of sexual assault allegations which were just lately made in opposition to Combs, one of the profitable moguls within the historical past of rap music.
The award to Cardello-Smith was issued on Monday by Choose Anna Marie Anzalone of the Lenawee County Circuit Court docket, after Combs failed to look for a 9 September listening to over the lawsuit.
In keeping with the native newspaper, the Detroit Metro Occasions, Cardello-Smith crossed paths with Combs within the Nineteen Nineties whereas he was working within the restaurant and hospitality trade in Detroit.
He advised the courtroom that Combs just lately provided him $2.3m to drop the lawsuit, however he rejected that supply. He additionally stated that he continues to know Combs, and had produced paperwork exhibiting Combs’s title in a jail visitation log.
Combs’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, denied that the rapper ever knew Cardello-Smith in an announcement to the BBC.
Cardello-Smith is serving time for unrelated convictions of sexual misconduct and kidnapping, in response to courtroom paperwork.
The Detroit Metro Occasions reported that he taught himself prison and civil regulation throughout his time in jail, and had since developed “a protracted historical past of difficult the judicial system” by submitting a number of lawsuits.
Others have sued Combs for sexual and bodily abuse, together with his long-time associate Casandra “Cassie” Ventura.
Combs paid Ventura an undisclosed sum of cash, which settled the matter outdoors of courtroom.
The rapper had repeatedly denied the allegations, however later apologised after CCTV footage from 2016 was launched in Could showing to point out Combs throwing and kicking Ventura in a resort hallway.
In March, federal brokers raided two homes owned by the star “as a part of an ongoing investigation” into intercourse trafficking.
On the time, Combs’ lawyer had known as the raid an “unprecedented ambush” and stated his consumer was harmless.