Houston attorney Tony Buzbee on Tuesday afternoon announced plans to bring more than 100 lawsuits in multiple states on behalf of people claiming they were sexually abused or exploited by media mogul Sean Combs.
None of the lawsuits had been filed as of Tuesday afternoon. Buzbee said the cases would be filed individually, and the first would come within the next 30 days. He anticipated that lawsuits would be filed most in New York, California and Florida, he said during a news conference from his 75th floor office in downtown Houston.
Buzbee said his law firm and partnering firm AVA Law Group had received more than 3,000 calls from people claiming they were victims of Combs, who has also gone by the stage names Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, since his arrest by federal authorities last month.
After an initial vetting procedure, Buzbee said his firm had chosen to represent 120 people — 60 men and 60 women — in their claims against Combs. Some of the people say they were victimized as minors, Buzbee said. Some were allegedly sexually assaulted after approaching Combs looking for entry into the entertainment industry, other after being invited to his parties, Buzbee said.
“These are not easy cases,” Buzbee said. “They’re very tough. The process is hard, and in some cases the process is very lengthy. These cases are hard to prove. Many times, it’s the victim’s word against the alleged perpetrator. Each of these they will no doubt be publicly attacked by the alleged perpetrators, and in some cases the general public, the feckless and cowardly keyboard warriors love to attack. We know what we’re up against.”
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Buzbee said the allegations of abuse happened between 1991 – when Combs was in the early days of his rap career – to 2024, after he had become a three-time Grammy winner and had an estimated net worth of $1 billion.
Buzbee suggested that other celebrities who attended Combs’ parties could be included in some of the lawsuits, as could banks, pharmaceutical companies and hotels that he said “ultimately profit off this culture and behavior.”
“Any entity who covered it up or helped cover it up, these people who know who they are, should just come forward now,” Buzbee said.
Buzbee has a long history of representing people in high-profile or highly visible cases, victims of the 2005 BP plant explosion in Texas City, embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxon and dozens of women who made sexual assault claims against former Houston Texans quarterback DeShaun Watson.
The Watson lawsuits also started as anonymous complaints, before two Harris County judges ruled they had to identify themselves in order for the cases to move forward.
“We’ll have to struggle with that with each one of these cases,” Buzbee said of efforts to keep the complainants anonymous. “Our intention is to file these cases and pursue them until the court tells us otherwise.”
Buzbee also represents a number of the AstroWorld victims; I’m not sure what the status of that litigation is. I don’t plan to follow this closely, but I saw the headline and wanted to make note of it. I hope everyone who was injured gets some justice.