McKenney v. Combs: Combs's Deadline to Respond Is on Hold Until the Appeals Are Decided

Tina McKenney sued Sean Combs and his companies in February 2025 over an alleged 2001 rape by his bodyguard, Joseph Sherman. Combs and the corporate defendants have never answered, and they have not moved to dismiss — because they agreed in May 2025, in a stipulation her lawyers also signed, to put their response on hold until higher courts decide whether the law she sued under can reach her claim. That question is now before New York’s highest court, and briefing there was completed in August 2026.

Background

McKenney, who filed originally under the pseudonym “Jane Doe,” alleges that in late 2001 she met Joseph Sherman — Combs’s bodyguard, known as “Big Joe” — at a nightclub near Combs’s restaurant, Justin’s, in New York City. She knew Sherman because he was involved with a friend of hers. After several hours, Sherman offered her a ride home in his Cadillac Escalade; en route, he stopped at his own apartment. Once inside, McKenney alleges, Sherman emerged naked, demanded she undress, and when she refused, retrieved a handgun from a closet and vaginally raped her at gunpoint. She alleges that in the aftermath she accidentally placed a phone call to the friend Sherman was involved with, who overheard his voice but did not believe her account of the assault. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 37–44, NYSCEF Doc. No. 18.) McKenney brings a single claim against Combs, Sherman, and a group of Combs-controlled corporate entities under New York City’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act (the GMVL), alleging the companies enabled and helped conceal the assault. (Id. ¶¶ 45–55.)

One of the ten corporate entities originally named, Bad Boy Records LLC, is no longer a defendant: McKenney and the company stipulated to a voluntary dismissal without prejudice in June 2025, with no findings on the merits. (Stip. of Partial Discontinuance, NYSCEF Doc. No. 14.) Daddy’s House Recordings, CE OpCo (d/b/a Combs Global), and the remaining Bad Boy entities are still in the case.

Sherman is also named, alongside Combs, as a defendant in a separate federal suit, Graves v. Combs, No. 1:24-cv-07201 (S.D.N.Y.), filed by Thalia Graves in September 2024 and currently stayed pending related Second Circuit appeals.

The Stay

The claim was filed under a New York City law whose two-year revival window, opened by a 2022 amendment, is what lets McKenney sue over a 2001 event. Combs and the corporate defendants told the court they intend to move to dismiss on timeliness grounds: that state law preempts the city’s revival window, and that the GMVL cannot be applied retroactively. McKenney disputes both arguments. (Stip. Re: Time to Respond, NYSCEF Doc. No. 9, at 1–2.)

Rather than brief those questions in state court while appeals on them were pending, the two sides stipulated on May 12, 2025 that the deadline for the Combs Defendants “to file a motion to dismiss, answer, or otherwise respond” to the complaint “is hereby stayed pending a final decision on the Retroactivity Appeal and the GMVL Preemption Appeals,” after which the parties would set a new deadline. (Id. at 3.) The stipulation defines the first as Stein v. Rockefeller University, a First Department appeal that was scheduled for argument on May 13, 2025, and the second as a pair of Second Circuit appeals, Parker v. Alexander, No. 25-487, and Doe v. Black, No. 25-564. (Id. at 2.) It also noted that judges in four Southern District of New York cases against the same defendants had already stayed motions to dismiss for the same reason. (Id. at 3.) The stipulation was filed May 20, 2025, replacing an earlier agreement that had set a June 19, 2025 response date. (NYSCEF Doc. Nos. 7, 9.)

The stay covers the Combs Defendants — Combs, Daddy’s House, CE OpCo, and the remaining Bad Boy entities. It does not name Sherman, who has no attorney of record on this docket.

Where the Appeals Stand

Parker v. Alexander is a civil suit by Angelica Parker against the brothers Tal, Alon, and Oren Alexander, raising the same city-law preemption question. The Second Circuit heard argument on December 17, 2025, and on March 23, 2026 declined to decide it, instead certifying the question to the New York Court of Appeals: whether the city law’s two-year revival window is preempted by the earlier revival periods in the state’s Child Victims Act and Adult Survivors Act. The panel wrote that no New York court has addressed the question, that the district courts in the circuit have split, and that it involves home-rule authority under the state constitution. (Parker v. Alexander, No. 25-487, slip op. at 1–4 (2d Cir. Mar. 23, 2026).) A concurring judge noted that a “whole bunch of state court cases are lined up” waiting on the answer. (Id. at 4.) The companion appeal, Doe v. Black, was sent back to the district court on separate grounds and is no longer being heard alongside Parker. (Id. at 2 n.1.)

On April 16, 2026, the Court of Appeals accepted the certified question, to be “considered after briefing and argument.” (Order, Parker v. Alexander, No. 66 (N.Y. Apr. 16, 2026).) The appellant’s brief was filed June 15, the respondents’ brief July 31, and the appellant’s reply August 14. No argument date has been set.

Anonymity Denied, Amended Complaint Filed Under Her Own Name

McKenney moved, by order to show cause, for permission to litigate anonymously. On August 14, 2025, Justice Leslie A. Stroth denied the motion, finding that McKenney’s only support was an unsworn declaration from her lawyer, which does not satisfy CPLR 2106’s requirement of a sworn affirmation or affidavit, and that the First Department has held an attorney’s affirmation adequate only where its facts are specific to the plaintiff — which this one, unsworn, could not establish either way. (Decision & Order at 1–2, NYSCEF Doc. No. 15, citing Doe v. Yeshiva Univ., 195 A.D.3d 565.) The court denied the motion without prejudice to renew within 30 days. (Id. at 2.)

McKenney did not renew the motion. Instead, on September 12, 2025, she filed an Amended Complaint captioned in her own name, dropping the pseudonym. (Am. Compl., NYSCEF Doc. No. 18.) The May 2025 stipulation speaks to the original complaint; no order or stipulation on the docket sets a separate deadline for a response to the Amended Complaint.

The Other Side

Combs and the corporate defendants, represented by Sher Tremonte LLP, had opposed the anonymity motion on the same ground the court ultimately relied on. Their brief noted that the same judge had “recently denied essentially identical anonymity motions” brought by the same plaintiffs’ firm in three other cases against Combs, and argued the motion “must be denied on that basis alone.” (Mem. of Law in Opp’n at 1, NYSCEF Doc. No. 8.) It went further, arguing that even a proper declaration would not have mattered, because “no less than fourteen courts have recently denied similar anonymity motions in sexual abuse cases brought against the Combs Defendants, in decisions authored by eleven different judges.” (Id. at 2.)

Sher Tremonte entered notices of appearance in May 2025 for Combs, Daddy’s House, CE OpCo, and the remaining Bad Boy entities — not for Bad Boy Records LLC, which had its own counsel, and not for Sherman. (NYSCEF Doc. Nos. 10–13.) The only docket activity after the Amended Complaint is a housekeeping order, decided June 4, 2026, admitting an out-of-state attorney to appear for McKenney pro hac vice. (Order, NYSCEF Doc. No. 22.) McKenney has not moved for a default judgment against any defendant.

Counsel and Sources

Tina McKenney is represented by Antigone Curis of Curis Law, PLLC; Anthony G. Buzbee and David C. Fortney of The Buzbee Law Firm; and Andrew Van Arsdale of AVA Law Group. Sean Combs, Daddy’s House Recordings, CE OpCo, and the remaining Bad Boy entities are represented by Mark Cuccaro, Raphael A. Friedman, Michael Tremonte, and Erica A. Wolff of Sher Tremonte LLP. Bad Boy Records LLC, before its dismissal, was represented by Donald S. Zakarin and Nicholas G. Saady of Pryor Cashman LLP. Source: NYSCEF Doc. Nos. 1, 7–15, 18, 22 on the McKenney v. Combs docket.

Diddy Docket reports on public court records. Parties are presumed innocent or not liable unless proven otherwise. This is not legal advice.