The hip-hop mogul failed to respond to lawsuit against him over alleged sexual assault in Detroit in 1997
A man who accused Sean “Diddy” Combs of sexually assaulting him has won a $100m judgment after the rapper, music producer and businessman failed to contest the allegations in a civil courthouse in Michigan.
Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, 51, secured the remarkably large judgment after filing a lawsuit that described how he encountered Combs while working in the restaurant and hospitality industry near Detroit.
According to the Detroit Metro Times, Cardello-Smith alleged that he was both drugged and sexually assaulted by Combs at a party in Detroit in 1997, just one claim amid a broader pattern of alleged sexual abuse and other misconduct by the three-time Grammy winner once also known as P Diddy, Puff Daddy and Love.
I mean it’s the law so lawyers can try whatever appeals they like but from my incredibly limited understanding, default judgements aren’t usually appealable unless there was a structural/procedural mess up.
So if combs wasn’t notified (we all know that’s not true), or if there was a reasonable reason he didn’t respond (got into a car accident on the way to the courthouse/deployed to Iraq), or some local procedural misstep by the plaintiff.
But failing that courts are pretty strict about enforcing default judgements as final. God knows they don’t want people just not showing up as a tactic.
On the surface, the order seems like it couldn’t be appealed for most of the usual reasons. I wonder if they could play the “my client couldn’t respond because it may violate his 5th amendment rights in a related criminal case” or something like that. That seems like the type of thing a lawyer might try.
It’s a civil trial - IIRC you can’t plead the 5th in civil trial in the same way you can a criminal trial. The only thing I think they have a chance with is the amount.