The legal battle between Diddy and his accusers rages on. Its latest development concerns accuser April Lampros, who claims he committed sexual assault on at least four separate occasions as well as battery, infliction of emotional distress, and gender-motivated violence. According to court documents reportedly obtained by AllHipHop, her legal team responded to Sean Combs' team's motion to dismiss with a contesting move on Monday (September 2). Specifically, Lampros' lawyer Tyrone Blackburn motioned to add new allegations to her complaint and to remove the claims of emotional distress against Sony Music and other parties.
"At this time, the plaintiff seeks leave of the court to amend its complaint to withdraw the negligent infliction of emotional distress claim against corporate defendants and to add additional facts to remedy the issues in the pleading identified by the defendants in their respective motions to dismiss," Blackburn stated. Furthermore, it seems like this motion seeks to shift focus from corporate defendants' alleged infliction of emotional distress. Instead, it wants to highlight how Diddy and his team's assessment of Lampros' attorney is an allegedly misleading one.
Diddy Performing In London
For those unaware, Diddy's team motioned to dismiss due in part to Blackburn's alleged lack of credibility. These claims include accusations of pressuring settlements and filing improper cases for the sake of media attention. In response, Lampros' lawyer claimed that the Bad Boy mogul's team developed a "sick obsession" with him that became "disturbing" after initially being "flattering." "[Combs and Bad Boy Records’] counsels attach themselves to a single sentence of an opinion of an unrelated case to try and classify the plaintiff’s pleading as 'salacious' or meritless with the sole intent of forcing defendants to 'settle,'" Blackburn wrote.
"For starters, plaintiff never requested a settlement from defendants [Diddy] and [Bad Boy Records]," he continued. "The plaintiff intends to hold [Diddy] and [Bad Boy] accountable for their actions before a jury of their peers. Secondly, although this writer picks his clients, he does not pick their facts. If [Diddy] had not engaged in salacious criminal behavior, this writer would not have had anything salacious to file. [Diddy's] counsels should spend their time teaching him lessons he clearly missed growing up as a child: 1. No means no, and 2. men should never put their hands (or feet) on women." Blackburn also represents another accuser of Combs', Lil Rod. In addition to this case, there are also multiple others.