Days after Jay-Z’s rape accuser withdrew her claims, the superstar rapper has turned to a California appellate court to seek the revival of his extortion lawsuit against the attorneys who pursued the case.
Identified only by the pseudonym Jane Doe, the accuser conceded last week that her claims were untrue and alleged that Tony Buzbee and other attorneys had performed little due diligence in the shelved 2024 suit.
A petition obtained by Billboard shows Jay-Z’s legal team, whose client is Shawn Carter, requesting a rehearing of the case against Buzbee.
Previously, on September 10, a California appellate panel ruled that Carter could not pursue extortion or defamation claims against Buzbee.
"The record contains no evidence Buzbee accused Carter of raping Jane Doe while knowing those statements to be false or with reckless disregard as to whether they were true," the appeals court wrote in a decision obtained by Billboard.
"To the contrary, Buzbee submitted declarations showing his firm’s investigations led him to subjectively believe in the truth of the accusations."
In the new petition, Carter’s lawyers argue that the accuser’s "extraordinary" recantation is enough for the court to reconsider its recent ruling because it shows that Buzbee’s lawsuit against the star was "built on lies".
In a previous statement to Billboard, Buzbee called the extortion lawsuit "total bulls**t."
In court filings last week, his legal team also blasted the recantation, labeling their former client, who was 13 at the time of the previously alleged assault, as an "unreliable" witness and insinuating that Jay-Z had compensated her to drop her allegations.
In a declaration filed last week, Jane Doe said there was "no truth to any of my claims" against Jay-Z, and that she was not being paid for her statement.
