Sean 'Diddy' Combs can move forward with $100M defamation case, judge rules
Liza Esquibias
Sean "Diddy" Combs landed a major win in his defamation case against attorney Ariel Mitchell and her client Courtney Burgess, who claimed to have videos showing the music mogul sexually assaulting minors and celebrities at his "freak off" sex parties.
New York federal judge John P. Cronan denied Mitchell's motion to dismiss the lawsuit in a Sept. 4 ruling obtained by USA TODAY, giving Combs the green light to move forward with his $100 million legal action.
Combs first sued Burgess, Mitchell and Nexstar Media for $50 million in January 2025 but amended his complaint seven months later seeking an additional $50 million in damages. In the filing, he accused the lawyer of damaging his reputation by vouching for Burgess' allegations and making allegedly false statements of her own, "including that a police report corroborated an accusation of rape against Combs and that Combs had used drug-laced baby oil to incapacitate his victims."
Judge sides with Diddy, orders case to move forward
While Mitchell argued in her motion to dismiss that her statements "are not 'capable of being proven true or fals...