Attorneys for Sean "Diddy" Combs asked a federal judge this week to dismiss a revived lawsuit by former Bad Boy Entertainment co‑founder Kirk Burrowes, arguing an alleged 2013 street encounter does not qualify as a gender‑motivated crime under New York law.
AllHipHop reported that in a filing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Combs' lawyers said the complaint's description of a chance daylight meeting — in which Combs allegedly hugged Burrowes from behind and grabbed his buttocks while an associate made a threat — does not meet the statutory definition of a crime of violence under the Gender‑Motivated Violence (GMV) Act.
"Although the complaint alleges that Mr. Combs touched plaintiff's rear, it does not allege that the conduct was undertaken for the purpose of sexual gratification," counsel Jonathan Davis wrote.
The brief quoted Burrowes' own allegation that the touching was intended to reinforce Mr. Combs's continued dominance and control over Burrowes' ability to exist within the music industry and public sphere and argued that motivation does not implicate the statute's sexual‑purpose element.
Burrowes, who co‑founded Bad Boy with Combs in the early 1990s, filed the lawsuit in 2025 recounting a decade of alleged sexual and physical misconduct by Combs beginning in 1993. The complaint includes allegations that Combs repeatedly groped Burrowes at the label's offices, summoned him to observe sexual acts, and on separate occasions coerced or forced sexual contact in hotel suites and apartments in the mid‑1990s.
According to Play Louder, the complaint also describes an incident in 1996 in which Burrowes says Combs entered his office with a baseball bat and, accompanied by an attorney carrying stock certificates, demanded that Burrowes sign over a 25% stake in Bad Boy or face violence. Burrowes says he surrendered his stake, was later fired and blacklisted in the industry, and endured periods of homelessness.
A prior civil claim related to the 1996 incident was dismissed as time‑barred in 2003. Burrowes relied on a 2025 GMV "revival" window to bring the revived claims, and Combs' lawyers are seeking to block that path back into court.
Combs is currently serving a federal sentence of 50 months at FCI Fort Dix after a conviction on Mann Act–related charges; his criminal appeal remains pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
In their brief, Combs' lawyers also criticized Burrowes' attorney, citing court rulings that flagged some of the attorney's filings for reliance on what those courts described as "fabricated legal propositions derived from generative artificial intelligence."
Burrowes's allegations drew broader attention when he described them in the 50 Cent Netflix documentary "Sean Combs: The Reckoning," and a longtime friend of Combs who appears in the documentary said Burrowes was "probably the most legitimate" of those who have leveled grievances against the music executive.
Representatives for Burrowes did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Combs' attorneys declined to comment beyond their court filing.
The court has not yet ruled on the motion to dismiss.
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