Diddy Compares Freak-Off Worker To Restaurant’s Menu

Sean “Diddy” Combs compared Clayton Howard’s escort work to a restaurant menu as his lawyers urged a judge to throw out the former sex worker’s lawsuit over his encounters with the mogul and Cassie Ventura.

In an October 7 court reply highlighted by TMZ, Diddy and two companies asked U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang to end the case without another chance to amend. Their lawyers argued that Howard’s repeated paid visits undercut his claims that he was forced into sex.

“Howard is similar to a restaurant, offering choices both on and off the menu,” the lawyers wrote.

They argued that Howard could refuse requests or change the services he offered. They also accused him of using the lawsuit to replace the income he lost when the encounters ended.

Howard’s account draws a different line between accepting payment and agreeing to everything that happened. His August 3 amended complaint says the encounters began in 2009 and involved travel to New York, Miami and Los Angeles.

“At all times Plaintiff was an adult over the age of eighteen. Plaintiff does not contend that he never accepted payment or never understood the encounters to be sexual. He contends that his participation was procured and maintained by Defendants’ affirmative misrepresentations and concealment of material facts, and by drugging, physical restraint, and coercion, such that his apparent agreement did not extend to the acts and conditions actually imposed upon him,” Howard wrote.

He alleged that Diddy gave him a substance falsely described as Molly in 2015 to prolong a sexual encounter. He also claimed his clothes, ID and phone were taken during a December 2016 Miami visit, leaving him unable to leave.

Howard said Diddy kicked Cassie, then ordered him into another room, where he remained for about 12 hours.

“Plaintiff does not purport to describe events that occurred outside his presence, and, because of the music, did not hear what occurred in the master suite after he was ordered from it. Plaintiff’s agreement to attend the Miami encounter did not extend to being deprived of his clothing, identification, and telephone; to witnessing an assault; or to being confined for approximately twelve hours in a room he could not leave,” Howard wrote.

Diddy’s lawyers disputed that account’s legal force. They argued that Howard had not shown how drugs or restraint caused him to perform a sex act. They said his description of the 2015 incident showed the encounter ended after he became ill.

The case reached this stage after Hwang kept trafficking claims against Diddy alive in July. She dismissed other claims with a chance to amend. Howard then filed his revised suit. Diddy argued that the new complaint let him challenge the surviving claims again.

Cassie’s own October 7 reply also sought dismissal. Her lawyers argued that Howard had not shown she used force, fraud or coercion, and said his account described Diddy controlling the sessions and abusing her.

Howard seeks damages, medical expenses and an order barring harassment, retaliation and use of recordings of him.

Diddy was sentenced to 50 months in prison for two counts of transportation for prostitution. He was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.

The California filings list a dismissal hearing for October 21 at 1:30 P.M.