A Tennessee woman who claims in a civil lawsuit that Sean “Diddy” Combs sexually assaulted her when she was a 19-year-old college student in Brooklyn cannot proceed with her case anonymously, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, finding the woman’s arguments “wholly meritless.”
“Simply put, allegations of sexual assault, by themselves, are not sufficient to entitle a plaintiff to proceed under a pseudonym,” Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil wrote in the ruling.
The woman alleged a security guard took her into a private room at a party Combs hosted, and that the guard told her, “You know what you are here for.”
In asking to mask her identity, the woman argued she could be harmed if her name were to be published, but the judge was ultimately not convinced.
“Combs has had no contact with Plaintiff for the approximately 20 years since the alleged rape and Combs is currently detained pending trial. As such, counsel has not identified any present threat of physical harm to Plaintiff,” the decision said.