A federal judge has permanently dismissed nearly all of the $60 million racketeering and sexual assault lawsuit that former Making the Band 2 contestant Sara Rivers filed against Sean Combs in February.
In a ruling issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Jed. S. Rakoff dismissed “finally and with prejudice” 21 of the 22 causes of action in the lengthy lawsuit, meaning they cannot be refiled. The suit alleged that Combs sexually harassed Rivers and stroked her breasts during production of the hit MTV reality show, which started filming in 2002.
The judge said he was holding off on deciding the fate of the last remaining cause of action – count 15 in the 148-page lawsuit – to wait for an appeals court decision on whether the claim-revival window opened under New York City’s Gender Motivated Violence Protection Act was allowed to remain open after New York’s Adult Survivors Act, a statewide statute, closed its window for otherwise time-barred sexual misconduct claims.
In her cause of action citing the GMVPA, Rivers alleged that Combs “cornered” and sexually assaulted her at his recording studio and then blackballed her in the music industry when she rebuffed his advances.
Judge Rakoff said he planned to issue a more detailed order in the future “setting forth the reasons” for his ruling. Combs and several of his co-defendants challenged the lawsuit as being beyond the statute of limitations. Several of Rivers’ claims were workplace-related violations.
“From the outset, we have said these claims were meritless, time-barred, and legally deficient. The court agreed, finding no legal basis to allow them to proceed,” Comb’s civil lawyer Erica Wolff said in a statement. “We are pleased the court carefully analyzed and swiftly dismissed these baseless claims.”
Rivers’ lawyer, Ariel Mitchell, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Known as Sara Stokes when she appeared on Making the Band 2, Rivers was a part of the Bad Boy Records hip hop group Da Band.
In her lawsuit, Rivers claimed Combs controlled her sleeping schedule, mocked her eating disorder, yelled at her, and forced her to do menial manual labor without pay. She recalled the time Combs made Rivers and her bandmates walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn just to bring him a cheesecake.
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Combs is still facing dozens of other civil lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct. The music mogul, 55, remains in federal custody pending his Oct. 3 sentencing for his conviction on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
After an eight-week trial in New York that ended last month, he was found guilty of the Mann Act violations but acquitted of the more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking.
