Jay-Z's lawyers say rape accuser's window to sue has 'expired'

Jay-Z and his legal team are trying every possible tactic to get the rape charge against him dismissed.

Source: Gilbert Florès/Getty

According to reports from DeadlineRoc Nation leader Alex Spiro's attorney filed new documents related to the ongoing rape case on Monday (Dec. 30). His legal team is seeking to challenge the lawsuit accusing Jay-Z of rape, saying the alleged assault took place months before a December 2000 law providing civil recourse for victims of gender-based violence took effect .

This comes just days after a New York-based federal judge rejected the rapper's efforts to dismiss allegations that he and Sean “Diddy” Combs sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl and the plaintiff's Jane Doe be unmasked. Since their efforts to have the case thrown out failed once, Jay-Z and his legal team have been trying to use timing and geography to help them get the lawsuit thrown out.

“The plaintiff cannot obtain redress for her sole claim under the Gender-Based Violence Victims Protection Act (the GMV Act), as a matter of law, as the law does not have retroactive effect,” a writes Spiro in a letter addressed to Judge Analisa Torres on Monday according to Deadline. “Plaintiff asserts a violation of the GMV Act for conduct that allegedly occurred in September 2000. But the GMV Act was not enacted until December 19, 2000, three months after the FAC claimed the conduct occurred. produced, and cannot apply retroactively to create a cause of action not available to the plaintiff at the time in question.

Spiro and Jay-Z are doubling down on the chronological aspect of their argument, insisting that Jane Doe's ability to file a lawsuit “expired no later than August 2021.”

Referring to a now-closed sexual assault case against a minor in which Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler was punched in late 2023, Jay-Z's legal team claims that “any viable claim under the GMV Act is prescribed under the New York Child Victims Act (CVA). which prevails over the plaintiff's claim under the GMV Act. Noting that the CVA was actually amended in 2019 with an additional 30-month period, “the courts in this district have, however, recognized that the CVA's reactivation period anticipates the overlapping and continuing GMV Act.”

The complaint in question, which was filed earlier this month, comes from Jane Doe, claiming she was raped by Jay-Z and Diddy at an MTV Video Music Awards afterparty in 2000, while she was 13 years old. Both rappers have denied the allegations.

Last week, in court documents obtained by TMZJudge Torres ruled that Jane Doe could remain anonymous after Jay-Z's lawyer requested that the case be dismissed and Doe's identity revealed. However, the judge noted that circumstances could change as the case moves forward, with the intention of revisiting the issue if and when the case moves forward.

Jay-Z's legal team is doing everything possible to prevent this from happening.