When personal injury attorney Tony Buzbee’s client, Jane Doe, dropped her sexual assault lawsuit against Jay-Z last year, the allegation didn’t simply disappear. Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, kept fighting the lawyer who brought the case. Now, in a stunning development, the woman has said under penalty of perjury that she never met the rapper and that her accusation against him was false — while raising new questions about how her lawyers handled the case.
As reported by Billboard, Doe recently filed a declaration in Carter’s ongoing federal suit against Buzbee and her other former lawyers. “There is no truth to any of my claims against Mr. Carter,” she wrote. Her new attorney says she maintains that she was sexually assaulted, but was mistaken in identifying Carter, and that she apologizes to him and his family.
Doe also describes a legal process that, by her account, involved remarkably little scrutiny before an accusation of this magnitude became a federal lawsuit. She claims she only had one phone call with her lawyers before they filed the initial complaint, and believes they did so without an independent investigation or corroboration. She says she disclosed mental health conditions, but her lawyers did not ask whether those conditions affected her memory. On top of that, she says Buzbee gave her $1,000 in spending money shortly before her NBC News interview.
But Buzbee and his co-defendants are pushing back, hard.
In a new court filing reported by Billboard, attorneys for Buzbee and the other former lawyers called the woman’s latest statement “bought-and-paid-for,” arguing that it was obtained in exchange for Carter dismissing her from his lawsuit. They’ve asked the court to strike the declaration, claiming Carter’s attorneys know it is “probably false and perjurious.”
They have a fairly obvious problem with the new version of events: The fact that it conflicts directly with previous sworn testimony.
According to Buzbee’s attorneys, the woman previously signed multiple declarations under penalty of perjury standing by her allegations against Carter. Now she has sworn to essentially the opposite, that Carter never raped her and that she has never even met or spoken to him.
That leaves someone with some explaining to do.
Buzbee’s attorneys are also leaning on Carter’s own prior attacks on the woman’s credibility. Carter’s lawsuit has portrayed her as an unreliable witness and raised concerns about her mental health and credibility. Now, Buzbee’s lawyers argue, Carter’s team is relying on that very same witness because her latest account supports his case.
The former lawyers are also disputing the suggestion that they recklessly filed her claims without investigation. Their response puts the recantation itself at the center of the fight, arguing that there is no evidence they knew her earlier sworn statements were false when they relied upon them.
Above the Law previously covered Carter’s attempt to sanction Buzbee for allegedly failing to investigate the claims before filing then. We later reported that Buzbee’s team appeared to have vetted the woman through interviews and a background check. Her new account casts that assessment in a very different light, but that certainly does not mean that Buzbee knew her accusations against Carter were false when he filed suit.
Carter has dropped the woman as a defendant from his federal suit, but his case against her former lawyers continues. His separate California extortion and defamation claims against Buzbee were dismissed, and an appeals court upheld that dismissal earlier this month. While the recantation doesn’t undo that ruling, it does, however, leave the federal court with two dramatically different sworn versions of the same story, and two sets of lawyers accusing the other side of misconduct in obtaining or relying upon them.
The underlying sexual assault case may be gone, but the fight over how it ever got filed in the first place is getting uglier by the day.
Jay-Z Sexual Assault Accuser Fully Recants Her Accusation: ‘These Allegations Were False’ [Billboard]
‘Bought-and-Paid-For’: Jay-Z Accuser’s Ex-Lawyers Respond to Her Recanting Allegations [Billboard]
Staci Zaretsky is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
The post Jay-Z Accuser Recants Her Claims, And Now The Lawyers Are Fighting Over Which Story To Believe appeared first on Above the Law.
When personal injury attorney Tony Buzbee’s client, Jane Doe, dropped her sexual assault lawsuit against Jay-Z last year, the allegation didn’t simply disappear. Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, kept fighting the lawyer who brought the case. Now, in a stunning development, the woman has said under penalty of perjury that she never met the rapper and that her accusation against him was false — while raising new questions about how her lawyers handled the case.
As reported by Billboard, Doe recently filed a declaration in Carter’s ongoing federal suit against Buzbee and her other former lawyers. “There is no truth to any of my claims against Mr. Carter,” she wrote. Her new attorney says she maintains that she was sexually assaulted, but was mistaken in identifying Carter, and that she apologizes to him and his family.
Doe also describes a legal process that, by her account, involved remarkably little scrutiny before an accusation of this magnitude became a federal lawsuit. She claims she only had one phone call with her lawyers before they filed the initial complaint, and believes they did so without an independent investigation or corroboration. She says she disclosed mental health conditions, but her lawyers did not ask whether those conditions affected her memory. On top of that, she says Buzbee gave her $1,000 in spending money shortly before her NBC News interview.
But Buzbee and his co-defendants are pushing back, hard.
In a new court filing reported by Billboard, attorneys for Buzbee and the other former lawyers called the woman’s latest statement “bought-and-paid-for,” arguing that it was obtained in exchange for Carter dismissing her from his lawsuit. They’ve asked the court to strike the declaration, claiming Carter’s attorneys know it is “probably false and perjurious.”
They have a fairly obvious problem with the new version of events: The fact that it conflicts directly with previous sworn testimony.
According to Buzbee’s attorneys, the woman previously signed multiple declarations under penalty of perjury standing by her allegations against Carter. Now she has sworn to essentially the opposite, that Carter never raped her and that she has never even met or spoken to him.
That leaves someone with some explaining to do.
Buzbee’s attorneys are also leaning on Carter’s own prior attacks on the woman’s credibility. Carter’s lawsuit has portrayed her as an unreliable witness and raised concerns about her mental health and credibility. Now, Buzbee’s lawyers argue, Carter’s team is relying on that very same witness because her latest account supports his case.
The former lawyers are also disputing the suggestion that they recklessly filed her claims without investigation. Their response puts the recantation itself at the center of the fight, arguing that there is no evidence they knew her earlier sworn statements were false when they relied upon them.
Above the Law previously covered Carter’s attempt to sanction Buzbee for allegedly failing to investigate the claims before filing then. We later reported that Buzbee’s team appeared to have vetted the woman through interviews and a background check. Her new account casts that assessment in a very different light, but that certainly does not mean that Buzbee knew her accusations against Carter were false when he filed suit.
Carter has dropped the woman as a defendant from his federal suit, but his case against her former lawyers continues. His separate California extortion and defamation claims against Buzbee were dismissed, and an appeals court upheld that dismissal earlier this month. While the recantation doesn’t undo that ruling, it does, however, leave the federal court with two dramatically different sworn versions of the same story, and two sets of lawyers accusing the other side of misconduct in obtaining or relying upon them.
The underlying sexual assault case may be gone, but the fight over how it ever got filed in the first place is getting uglier by the day.
Jay-Z Sexual Assault Accuser Fully Recants Her Accusation: ‘These Allegations Were False’ [Billboard]
‘Bought-and-Paid-For’: Jay-Z Accuser’s Ex-Lawyers Respond to Her Recanting Allegations [Billboard]
Staci Zaretsky is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
