Diddy has one less thing to worry about amid his mounting legal issues, as a judge has tossed his $100 million default judgment to the side – for now.
As previously reported, Diddy (real name Sean Combs) was sued by 51-year-old Michigan inmate Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith last month, claiming the embattled mogul drugged and sexually assaulted him at a party he was working at in Detroit in 1997. He then filed a restraining order against Combs to prevent him from selling assets that could be used to pay for the lawsuit.
When Diddy failed to show up to the court date last week, he was hit with a default judgment – which he immediately filed an emergency motion to overturn.
And on Wednesday (September 18), TMZ confirmed that Judge Anna Marie Anzalone made the call to set the judgment aside for now after agreeing that Diddy was never properly served. She also threw out the temporary restraining order, noting Diddy will likely win the case off the basis of statute of limitations alone.
The outlet reports that Diddy’s next step will likely be to file a motion to dismiss the case entirely.
Meanwhile, after being denied bail following his arrest on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, Diddy gave it another shot — and now he’s lost his second try as well.
On Wednesday (September 18), the embattled mogul appeared in front of Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. to ask yet again for his release as he and his team prepare for trial. Judge Carter turned down the request, per TMZ, because “the government has proven the defendant is a danger. The bail package is insufficient even on risk of flight.”
Both sides made arguments in front of Carter, with government lawyer Emily Johnson saying that Diddy had reached out repeatedly to alleged victims, in at least one case attempting to convince the victim that their sexual encounters had been consensual. Johnson focused on the fact that the bail package presented by Diddy’s team didn’t, to her mind, have enough in it to prevent potential obstruction of witnesses.
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Diddy’s attorney Marc Agnifilo presented his side afterwards. He promised to have a private investigation firm monitor Diddy’s house, and mentioned, per the previous judge’s concerns about Diddy’s drug abuse and anger issues, that his client has gone through rehab.
Diddy’s revised bail package, presented hours before the hearing, offered additional concessions if he was released: no non-family female visitors and weekly drug testing.
The package was slightly modified from the $50,000,000 one his team had proposed — and that a different judge had rejected — a day earlier.
