Marc Agnifilo, one of Diddy’s attorneys, has issued a statement regarding a sexual assault lawsuit filed against the Bad Boy Records mogul by a Michigan inmate.
On Monday (September 9), Lenawee County Circuit Court Judge Anna Marie Anzalone awarded Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith $100 million default judgement after Diddy failed to address the suit.
But Agnifilo and Diddy’s team discovered Cardello-Smith has filed multiple civil lawsuits against public figures, priests, the Department of Corrections and others.
“This man is a convicted felon and sexual predator, who has been sentenced on 14 counts of sexual assault and kidnapping over the last 26 years,” Agnifilo tells AllHipHop. “His resume now includes committing a fraud on the court from prison, as Mr. Combs has never heard of him let alone been served with any lawsuit. Mr. Combs looks forward to having this judgment swiftly dismissed.”
Cardello-Smith claims Diddy drugged and sexually assaulted him in 1997 at a party in Detroit. He claims they met when Cardello-Smith worked as a Detroit-area restaurant. Cardello-Smith further alleged that Diddy visited him in prison and offered him $2.3 million to drop the case. He provided records showing Diddy’s name in the visitation record but admitted he rejected the offer. He’s serving an unrelated sentence at the Earnest C. Brooks Correctional Facility in Muskegon Heights.
In an August hearing, Anzalone issued an order preventing Diddy from selling assets that could be used to pay for any potential damages resulting from Cardello-Smith’s lawsuit. He filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and or a preliminary injunction to stop Diddy from selling his Los Angeles mansion and other properties.
“[Diddy] stated that he would make me an offer to end the case and what happened to me because of other things that he stated he has going on in his life that require his money right now,” Cardello-Smith told the judge. He continued stating that Diddy said “he wants to sell everything off,” before offering him $2.3 million “to allow what happened to me to go away.”
According to Metro Times, the $100 million judgement is possibly the largest awarded to a non-attorney and a currently incarcerated inmate in history.
