- Attorney Tony Buzbee has withdrawn from over a dozen lawsuits he filed against Sean “Diddy” Combs.
- Buzbee was not permitted to practice in the New York federal court where he filed the suits.
- The Texas-based attorney told BI in an email that Jay-Z filed a grievance against him.
Tony Buzbee, the Texas-based attorney who has brought a wave of sex abuse lawsuits against Sean “Diddy” Combs, has been forced to back out of more than a dozen cases involving the hip-hop mogul — and he’s putting the blame on Jay-Z.
This week, Buzbee withdrew himself as the plaintiff attorney in at least 14 lawsuits that he filed against Combs dating back to October in a New York federal court after it became clear he was not permitted to practice law there, according to court documents reviewed by Business Insider.
Buzbee told BI that Jay-Z — whose real name is Shawn Carter — has filed a court grievance against him in a bid to keep him from getting admitted to try cases in the Southern District of New York.
Jay-Z’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last week, a judge overseeing one of Buzbee’s cases said in a court filing that it came to her attention that Buzbee has not been admitted to practice in the SDNY, a federal court district that includes Manhattan — where Buzbee has filed a slew of lawsuits against Combs accusing him of sexual assault and rape.
Combs, who remains locked up pretrial at a Brooklyn jail on federal sex trafficking charges, has vehemently denied the charges, as well as all sex abuse allegations against him.
According to a February 13 order from the Committee on Grievances in the SDNY, Buzbee filed for admission to practice in the court on January 29, months after he first filed lawsuits against Combs.
“Per the Committee’s review of the dockets, Mr. Buzbee has appeared in cases in this Court without seeking admission. Therefore, the Petition is denied,” the committee’s chair wrote in the order, court papers show.
US District Judge Ronnie Abrams, in her filing last week, said Buzbee had been warned several weeks prior in a separate case that he was in violation of a local rule of the court due to his admission status. Abrams wrote that Buzbee “failed to bring this issue to the Court’s attention” and ordered him to explain why.
In a Monday letter, Buzbee wrote that he “made an error in judgment by failing to inform” the judge that he had not been admitted to practice in SDNY.
“As an attorney in good standing of the New York State Bar, the Texas State Bar, and your sister district, the Bar for Eastern District of the State of New York, I believe I am eminently qualified and should not be precluded from representing the Plaintiff in this action,” Buzbee wrote.
However, he wrote, his admission status has “become a distraction that has shifted the focus of the matter away from where it should be, which is securing justice for the Plaintiff.”
Buzbee added that the unnamed plaintiff in the case will continue to be represented by the New York law firm with which he co-filed that lawsuit and others against Combs as he sorts “these issues” out.
Buzbee told BI by email that he is licensed to practice law in New York state court, as well as the Eastern District of New York.
“Typically, when you are admitted in a sister district, you receive reciprocal admission,” he said. “But, in this case, the individual I was bringing a suit against, Shawn Carter, filed a grievance against me trying to keep me from receiving admission — a formality. So I have to deal with that before I receive formal admission.”
Buzbee wrote he was one of multiple lawyers handling the cases, yet “was the only one singled out and a grievance filed against me by Jay Z.”
He accused Jay-Z of “using the grievance process as a weapon.”
Last month, one of Buzbee’s clients dropped her sexual assault lawsuit that accused Combs and Jay-Z. Jay-Z has since filed a defamation suit against the Alabama woman and Buzbee.
Meanwhile, Buzbee filed a motion last month in another federal lawsuit against Combs seeking to represent his client on a “pro hac vice” basis — meaning he’s an additional lawyer on the case despite not being licensed there. He wrote in the court filing that he was recently denied admission to the bar of the Southern District of New York “based in large part on the grievance.”
Buzbee wrote in an affidavit attached to the motion that he intends to defend himself against the grievance and seek an appeal of the SDNY’s admissions decision.
“The primary factor underlying both the grievance and the Southern District’s admission decision is that I electronically signed numerous pleadings alongside my firm’s local counsel (who is admitted to the Southern District of New York and who actually filed all pleadings and other papers),” Buzbee wrote.
“To the extent I violated the Southern District’s rules in so doing, those violations were inadvertent, and I sincerely apologize.”
In opposing Buzbee’s motion, Combs’ attorneys wrote in a February 26 court filing that they have never opposed a pro hac vice application — a request for temporary authorization to practice in a certain jurisdiction — “and we do not do so lightly here.”
“But Buzbee’s egregious misconduct warrants denial of the privilege of appearing in this District,” the attorneys wrote.
“He has signed multiple filings across twenty- two cases without permission to practice in this Court; he failed in each instance to disclose that he had filed without being admitted; and he violated New York’s Rules of Professional Conduct by, among other things, repeatedly insisting that Mr. Combs is guilty of the criminal charges pending against him in this District, even though Buzbee has no good faith basis to believe the Government will call any of his clients as a witness in that case,” they said.
Buzbee has filed several other lawsuits against Combs in New York state court where he told BI he is lead counsel and will continue to be “as a member of good standing in the New York Bar.”
