A California appeals court has rejected Jay-Z‘s attempt to revive his extortion and defamation lawsuit against the Texas lawyer who filed the stunning, since-dismissed complaint accusing the music mogul of raping a 13-year-old girl. In a 24-page ruling obtained by Rolling Stone, the appellate court said attorney Tony Buzbee did not act with malice when he briefly represented the woman who accused Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, of sexually assaulting her alongside Sean Combs at an afterparty for the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000. To the contrary, Buzbee submitted declarations showing his firm’s and [a referral firm’s] investigations led him to subjectively believe in the truth of the accusations,” Associate Justice Anne Richardson wrote in the unanimous ruling from California’s Second Appellate District.
The ruling also found that Buzbee was protected by the litigation privilege when he sent a demand letter to Carter before he named the “Empire State of Mind” rapper as a defendant in Jane Doe’s lawsuit. And Jane Doe sued Carter after he declined to mediate,” the ruling states. I expected the case to be dismissed and now that it has been, I look forward to recovering my every penny of my fees and expenses.” Attempts to reach Carter’s high-powered lawyer, Alex Spiro, were not immediately successful.
Carter first sued Buzbee in late 2024, alleging that the prominent Houston lawyer knew he was advancing false claims when he filed a lawsuit accusing Carter of raping Jane Doe with Combs. Carter said Buzbee had sent him two demand letters in early November 2024 seeking money to resolve the allegations privately. Weeks later, after Carter declined to engage, Buzbee publicly identified him as the previously unnamed John Doe co-defendant in Jane Doe’s lawsuit, according to Carter.
Los Angeles County Judge Mark Epstein held multiple hearings on Buzbee’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, initially signaling he would allow some of Carter’s defamation claims to proceed. Then at a subsequent hearing, he said he was inclined to let the Roc Nation founder proceed with his extortion claim as well. He said he reconsidered his position based on a private investigation of the Jane Doe submitted by Jay-Z’s lawyers.
The new evidence that briefly upended the dispute was a recorded conversation between private investigators and the Jane Doe on her front porch in Alabama in February 2025. The woman allegedly said, “It was more Diddy, but Buzbee brought Jay-Z into it.” She appeared to tell the investigators that it was Buzbee who “pushed” her into publicly naming Jay-Z as one of her assailants. In the snippet, one of the investigators specifically asked if Doe was saying that Carter was at the afterparty but “didn’t have anything to do with any sexual acts towards you.” Related Content Trump Plays Americans for Fools by Trying to Bribe Them for Votes Deeply Unpopular President’s Midterm Pitch: ‘I’m on the Ballot’ Ken Paxton Isn’t Ready For Prime Time.
Republicans Know It How Mark Carney Became Leader of the Free World by Standing Up to Trump “Yeah,” Doe replied. The other investigator then asked if it was Buzbee who suggested Jay-Z had a role in the alleged attack. Buzbee’s lawyers challenged the recording’s admissibility and relevance.
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