A judge ruled that Jay-Z’s sex assault accuser can remain anonymous despite the rapper’s insistence that she reveal her identity. According to Rolling Stone, Judge Analisa Torres also chastised the mogul’s lawyer Alex Spiro in her ruling, admonishing the attorney for using ad hominem attacks in his filings. Spiro had requested for the case to be dismissed, saying the accuser and her attorney, Tony Buzbee, were trying to extort his client and countersuing for defamation.
“The relentless filing of combative motions containing inflammatory language and ad hominem attacks [on Buzbee] is inappropriate, a waste of judicial resources, and a tactic unlikely to benefit his client,” wrote Torres, “The Court will not fast-track the judicial process merely because counsel demands it.”
Jay-Z himself issued a statement refuting the allegations against him, calling them “so heinous in nature” that he feels a criminal charge should have been filed instead. “My heart and support goes out to true victims in the world,” he wrote, “Who have to watch how their life story is dressed in costume for profitability by this ambulance chaser in a cheap suit.”
The lawsuit, filed earlier this month, is one of many against Sean “Diddy” Combs alleging sexual misconduct (in this case, sexually assaulting the alleged victim at an MTV VMAs after-party in 2000, when she says she was just 13 years old), but it is the first to specifically mention Jay-Z as a co-defendant. In an interview, the Jane Doe victim acknowledged that her story has “inconsistencies,” which is no guarantee that the whole story is false, but has cast doubt on its veracity, according to Spiro.