NEWARK, NEW JERSEY – AUGUST 28: Snoop Dogg attends the 2022 MTV VMAs at Prudential Center on August 28, 2022 in Newark, New Jersey.
Snoop Dogg filed a motion to dismiss yet another lawsuit filed against him by a pseudo-anonymous woman who claims she was sexually abused and sex-trafficked by the legendary rapper and his adviser.
This the accuser’s third attempt to sue Snoop Dogg.
The first lawsuit was filed in a California employment and fair housing court in December 2021, alleging various forms of sexual assault. That lawsuit was filed under the woman’s actual name and is a matter of public record. The second lawsuit was filed in federal court, this time with the plaintiff identified only as a Jane Doe, four days before the rapper’s February 2022 Super Bowl performance. That lawsuit was eventually voluntarily withdrawn.
The plaintiff’s latest effort was filed in late July, adding an additional conspiracy claim to previous allegations including sexual battery, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Representatives for Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, have previously termed the allegations a “meritless” effort at a “shakedown” that is “riddled with and predicated upon falsehoods and inaccuracies.”
The motion to dismiss argues the current lawsuit contains “the same deficiently pled claims” from the previously dismissed lawsuit and that the latest version fails to make any factual allegations supporting a claim under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
Doe has accused Snoop Dogg and his adviser Donald “Bishop Don Magic Juan” Johnson — whose real name is Donald Campbell — of victimizing her for years, beginning in 2013, when they allegedly forced her to perform oral sex. Additionally, she claims the two conspired to force her and others to have sex with them in exchange for employment, including “dancing and appearing” in their concerts, shows, and on a television network.
At the heart of the motion to dismiss is the argument that the accuser has simply failed to actually state a TVPA claim under federal law. Her latest lawsuit, Snoop Dogg’s attorneys say, “recites the formulaic elements of a TVPA claim, but alleges virtually no supporting facts.”
“[Doe] still fails to allege facts demonstrating Mr. Broadus proposed any ‘enticement’ to [Doe],” the motion to dismiss argues. “Similarly, [Doe] makes no factual allegations of an actual benefit Mr. Broadus promised to [her] (or otherwise discussed with her or offered) as part of any purported quid pro quo. [Doe] likewise fails to allege what Mr. Broadus said or did to her that would constitute a ‘commercial sex act’ under the statute.”
Additionally, the motion says the state law claims are barred by the statute of limitations because the plaintiff “waited nine years” to file her lawsuit.
Doe’s attorney Matt E.O. Finkelberg describes his client as a professional dancer, model and actress who worked for both Snoop Dogg and Campbell as well as other well-known rappers. The rap icon, by way of his representatives, has repeatedly said the woman “has never been Snoop Dogg’s employee.”
Doe says she missed out on being hired as a weather girl for the Double G News Network because she “refused to willingly and enthusiastically give oral sex … and was unable to orally give him an orgasm.”
A lengthy footnote takes aim at the allegations themselves:
Plaintiff’s allegations are contradictory, implausible, and simply unbelievable. According to Plaintiff’s Complaint (her third attempt in this Court to plead these allegations against Broadus), Plaintiff woke up next to Defendant Donald Campbell in his home, was “sexually assaulted” by him, and then immediately after Plaintiff decided to accompany Campbell to a recording studio where Broadus was present, purportedly “in hopes of obtaining a GGN Weather Girl position or another job” that Plaintiff does not claim Broadus ever promised, discussed, offered or even raised with her. Plaintiff simultaneously contends that (i) she “rebuff[ed]” Defendants’ alleged “sexual advances” yet she was “sexually assaulted,” (ii) she “refus[ed] to be pimped out and exploited by Defendants,” yet her alleged acts with Defendants are TVPA violations, (iii) she was an “employee” of Defendants at some unidentified time, yet she “would never be hired,” as “Defendants refused to hire her in retaliation,” and (iv) Broadus somehow “enticed” her to allegedly perform oral sex on him in a bathroom, yet she did so not because any promises were made, but because she “feared for her safety” and “for her life” from someone she alleges she wanted to work for.
The motion goes on to argue that the latest lawsuit offers only “conclusory” and “threadbare” allegations that cannot pass muster under federal pleading standards which require a certain degree of particularity.
From the filing, again, at length:
Here, Plaintiff does not allege facts supporting her conclusory allegation she was Mr. Broadus’s employee in either 2013 or 2022; she does not allege any facts concerning any workplace before or after the alleged May 2013 events; and she does not allege any facts showing her employer’s action against her, let alone an “adverse employment action” in 2022 that “result[ed] in a substantial adverse change in the terms and conditions of [her] employment.” Id. The Complaint provides no factual allegations of any employment agreement with Mr. Broadus, how he purportedly “supervised” Plaintiff, whether or how she was purportedly paid, or any other alleged terms of the non-existent “employment relationship,” including: when it started or ended, her work schedule, her responsibilities, or the existence, location, or description of her alleged workplace.
“As before, Ms. Doe’s complaint is riddled with falsehoods and fails to allege anything meeting the definition of her flawed claims,” a spokesperson for Snoop Dogg told Law&Crime. “The Motion to Dismiss filed today on behalf of Snoop Dogg states why Ms. Doe’s renewed claims are false and why they should be dismissed again. Snoop Dogg looks forward to proving the falsity of these allegations and obtaining, once again, their dismissal.”
[image via Catherine Powell/Getty Images for MTV/Paramount Global]