Diddy‘s former bodyguard Joseph Sherman has responded to being accused of raping a woman alongside his then-boss back in 2001 — and he’s doing it through the courts, by suing for defamation.
On Thursday (November 7), Sherman sued accuser Thalia Graves and her attorneys, including Gloria Allred.
The suit claims that Graves made “outrageous, disgusting, and life altering statements and publishings…without any regard for the truth” in her lawsuit against Diddy and Sherman, which was filed in September.
“Joseph Sherman has never met Thalia Graves, let alone raped her,” it continues.
One of the suit’s main points is that Sherman could not have been involved, since he stopped working for Diddy in 1999, two years before the alleged assault Graves recounts in her suit — and, he says, he was persona non grata at Bad Boy, not even allowed on the premises, because he left to work for a rival, Def Jam.
“Plainly said, the Plaintiff, Joseph Sherman, was not even allowed into Bad Boy records studios or near Sean Combs after 1999. Consequently, he could not have videotaped or raped Thalia Graves,” the suit reads.
The suit also includes what are alleged to be Instagram DMs from Graves to Sherman, in which she says: “if you are willing to give me a statement about my rape against Puffy then the attorneys won’t go after you for revenge porn or distribution of a sexual act without consent.”
That’s a reference to another claim in Graves’ suit: that her former boyfriend allegedly revealed to her that Diddy and Sherman had shown him a video of the assault — and that the two had a habit of doing this and selling the resulting videos.
“These statements imply that Defendant, Thalia Graves, is aware that Plaintiff, Joseph Sherman, is innocent of any alleged sexual assault but is attempting to leverage baseless allegations as part of her broader litigation strategy,” Sherman’s lawsuit reads.
In a post on Instagram, Sherman shared footage of the immediate aftermath of filing the suit.