However, the plaintiff's attorney has described it as "a weak attempt" for his lawyers "to fill their pockets before he is indicalled, and they decide to haul ass, just like his five previous lawyers did."

On Monday, rap and fashion star Sean "Diddy" Combs filed a move to dismiss Lil Rod's bombshell civil lawsuit, which claimed Combs had groomed him and exposed him to several crimes including drug trafficking, sexual assault and serving drug-laced drinks at his legendary events.

Defendants Sean Combs, Love Records, Inc. and Combs Global filed their motion in the Rodney Jones v. Sean Combs civil action with the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York. Along with many other influential executives, actor Cuba Gooding Jr. is also a defendant in the lawsuit. Universal Music honcho Lucian Graange is also involved. Claiming that Jones is only pursuing unpaid compensation from his work with Diddy and that his attorney is stirring the fires of the controversy from behind the scenes, the move seeks to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint filed in February with prejudice.

Combs hired musician and producer Rodney Jones Jr., better known as Lil Rod, in 2022 to help with his 2023 album, The Love Album: Off the Grid, Diddy's first studio record since 2006. Jones claims he spent more than a year living with Diddy in three separate homes, saw several salacious events including his sexual assault, was made to solicit sex workers, was drugged, humiliated and repeatedly groped on his anus and genitals by Gooding while in Diddy's orbit.

Jones demands $30 million in reparations; his action was filed on February 26 in a federal court in New York. Shortly after the lawsuit was first lodged, Jones included further information in the revised filing, saying that a "RICO enterprise" regularly "failed to adequately monitor, warn or supervise" Combs while Jones experienced abuse at his hands. The assertions rocked the hip-hop scene and started a cottage industry of conjecture about what could or may not be occurring beyond the gates of Diddy's houses and during his supposedly hedonistic events.

Monday saw this publicly refuted in the file of Manhattan-based legal firm Sher Tremonte.

"Mr. Jones's lawsuit is pure fiction — a shameful attempt to create media hype and extract a quick settlement," Combs' lawyer Erica Wolff said in a Monday statement. Mr. Jones was not intimidated, groomed, abused, or trafficked; there was no RICO conspiracy. We eagerly want to show in a court of law that all of Mr. Jones's assertions are fabrications and should be thrown out.

The petition refers to Jones's Second Amended Complaint as "his third attempt to dress up a run-of- the- median commercial disagreement as a salacious RICH Conspiracy" and notes that the 100-page file from earlier this year has "countless tall tales, shameless celebrity name drops and irrelevant images." It says that in terms of the fundamental facts—that is, where and when Jones claimed to have been assaulted—Jones's assault allegation runs counterintuitive.

The petition goes on: "Yet, despite all its hyperbole and lurid theatrics, the Second Amended Complaint fails to raise a single legitimate claim against any of the Combs defendants. Full of legally useless claims and obvious lies, the SAC's actual goal is to create media buzz and then use it to demand a settlement.

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Sher Tremonte lawyers describe in the petition what they believe to be false charges and falsehoods included in the complaint as the work of Tyrone Blackburn, a Brooklyn-based attorney hired by the plaintiff to humiliate her and pursue a quick payoff. The charges leveled against Combs, they say, "no surprise," and highlight Blackburn's recent referral to the Grievance Committee of this court for allegedly "improperly fil[ing] cases in federal court to garner media attention, embarrass defendants with salacious allegations and pressure defendants to settle quickly."

The lawyers then attack Jones's credibility, claiming that he posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) in which "he, together with a performer known as "Uncle Murda," laughed about this lawsuit (despite his allegations of "severe emotional distress," demanded Mr. Combs pay him "that money by Monday," and warned: "I'm from Chicago, we don't play about our business.'"

The motion says, "Like the SAC, Jones's videotaped threats on social media are part of a calculated effort to promote his personal brand and profit from the exposure." Federal court has no place for such strategies.

Apart from the rejection of the sexual assault allegation, Combs' lawyers also want the claims of his pattern of racketeering activities thrown out as well as his accountability for sexual approaches from third parties and the claimed mental anguish. Regarding the accusation of a violation of oral contract, Combs' lawyers also noted that the suit exceeds the statute of limitations.

Blackburn responded, in a statement to Deadline, calling the file a "billing exercise" for the attorneys who signed the move.

"It is a weak attempt to fill their pockets before he is indicted, and they decide to haul ass, just like his five previous lawyers did," Blackburn said to the newspaper. "Based on Cotes's point of view, I wouldn't have anything sensational to document if their client doesn't act in that manner. I choose my clients; I do not choose their facts.

Jones has fifteen days, until Sept. 9, to react to Monday's move to dismiss.