Wigdor, Douglas H

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    For Some Sex Assault Accusers, This Local Law Has Become a Last Resort

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    The law, which underpins several civil suits against Sean Combs, is the only remaining tool for reviving older claims in New York.In New York, where state laws that extended the time to file sex abuse suits have lapsed, plaintiffs have found one remaining tool: Section 10-1105 of New York City’s administrative code.The provision, known as the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, has provided the basis for recent lawsuits against the Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler; the luxury real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander; New York City’s Department of Correction; and the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, who is a defendant in four.“This statute continues to provide an avenue of relief for survivors,” said Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for a woman who sued Mr. Combs under the gender-motivated violence law, accusing him and two other men of gang-raping her in a New York recording studio in 2003. He has vehemently denied the allegations.Lawyers say they have been increasingly using the law, first passed by the City Council in 2000, since the expiration last year of the New York state law that had allowed for the filing of lawsuits over sexual abuse allegations even after the statute of limitations had passed. The state law, one of many adopted around the country in the wake of a surge in #MeToo complaints, led to more than 3,000 state court filings relating to claims that often dated back decades — in addition to thousands more filed under an earlier law for people who said they were sexually abused as children.Now plaintiffs are often relying on the city law that — because of a 2022 amendment — established a two-year window in which plaintiffs can sue over older allegations. That window closes at the start of March 2025, and the claims have to be related to events said to have occurred in New York City.In recent months, though, defense lawyers have mounted significant legal challenges to the city’s amendment. They have argued that the City Council infringed on the jurisdiction of state lawmakers, and in several cases, judges have issued decisions limiting the amendment’s scope.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The N.Y. Law That Underpins Several Lawsuits Against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

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      The law, which underpins several civil suits against Sean Combs, is the only remaining tool for reviving older claims in New York.In New York, where state laws that extended the time to file sex abuse suits have lapsed, plaintiffs have found one remaining tool: Section 10-1105 of New York City’s administrative code.The provision, known as the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, has provided the basis for recent lawsuits against the Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler; the luxury real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander; New York City’s Department of Correction; and the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, who is a defendant in four.“This statute continues to provide an avenue of relief for survivors,” said Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for a woman who sued Mr. Combs under the gender-motivated violence law, accusing him and two other men of gang-raping her in a New York recording studio in 2003. He has vehemently denied the allegations.Lawyers say they have been increasingly using the law, first passed by the City Council in 2000, since the expiration last year of the New York state law that had allowed for the filing of lawsuits over sexual abuse allegations even after the statute of limitations had passed. The state law, one of many adopted around the country in the wake of a surge in #MeToo complaints, led to more than 3,000 state court filings relating to claims that often dated back decades — in addition to thousands more filed under an earlier law for people who said they were sexually abused as children.Now plaintiffs are often relying on the city law that — because of a 2022 amendment — established a two-year window in which plaintiffs can sue over older allegations. That window closes at the start of March 2025, and the claims have to be related to events said to have occurred in New York City.In recent months, though, defense lawyers have mounted significant legal challenges to the city’s amendment. They have argued that the City Council infringed on the jurisdiction of state lawmakers, and in several cases, judges have issued decisions limiting the amendment’s scope.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

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      Why Is Sean Combs the Subject of a Homeland Security Investigation?

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      The department has a division that often directs inquiries into sex trafficking allegations, like those cited in recent lawsuits against Mr. Combs.The raids of Sean Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and the Miami area this week raised a barrage of questions about the nature of the inquiry, which a federal official said was at least in part a human trafficking investigation.The government has said little about the basis for the search warrants, but the raids came after five civil lawsuits were filed against Mr. Combs in recent months that accused him of violating sex trafficking laws. In four of the suits women accused him of rape, and in one a man accused him of unwanted sexual contact. Mr. Combs, a hip-hop impresario known as Puff Daddy and Diddy who has been a high-profile figure in the music industry since the 1990s, has vehemently denied all of the allegations, calling them “sickening.” Officials have not publicly named him as a target of any prosecution.As the civil suits against Mr. Combs illustrate, the term human or sex trafficking has a broader meaning in the law than perhaps the more popularly understood image of organized crime and forced prostitution rings.“Traditionally you think of trafficking as a pimp who has a stable of victims and then is trafficking them in the traditional sense of the word, for money,” said Jim Cole, a former supervisory special agent with Homeland Security Investigations who oversaw human trafficking cases, “but there are lots of forms of trafficking.”The breadth of trafficking investigations has grown with the recent uptick in sexual abuse claims and the use of the internet by traffickers. Homeland Security Investigations often leads such criminal investigations, although the department is most commonly associated with immigration and transnational issues.In the current inquiry, federal investigators in New York have been interviewing potential witnesses about sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Combs for several months, according to a person familiar with the interviews. Some of the questions involved the solicitation and transportation of prostitutes, as well as any payments or promises associated with sex acts, the person said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More