EXCLUSIVE: Diddy Asks Judge To Curb Freak-Off Worker’s Emergency Court Filings

Sean “Diddy” Combs asked a judge to curb Clayton Howard’s urgent court requests, saying the repeated filings drove up his legal bills before a key hearing.

Howard, a former male escort, sued Diddy and Cassie over paid sexual encounters that he alleged involved force, fraud and abuse. Both have challenged his claims.

Diddy and two companies made the request in an October 19 court brief. They asked Judge Anne Hwang to bar more emergency applications or screen them before the defense had to respond.

“Guardrails must be established and followed here. Plaintiff should be barred from filing another ex parte application or, at the very least, any more should first be screened by the Court before Plaintiff is poised to waste Defendants’ time and money,” their lawyers wrote.

The new dispute grew out of Howard’s bid to change his lawsuit again. He asked to swap one draft of his proposed sixth amended complaint for a new, 73-page version before the dismissal hearing.

His fifth amended complaint was still the version before the court.

Howard wanted Judge Hwang to read his new draft before deciding whether to let him change his claims and keep the case alive.

Diddy’s lawyers argued that Howard had not shown an emergency. They said he could seek changes through the usual process, which would give each side time to address them.

Howard, who represents himself, argued that his changes would narrow the dispute. He said the defense could address them at the hearing and offered to let its lawyers file a short response.

“The Application changes no deadline and adds no briefing. The revision narrows what Defendants must defend: one cause of action is withdrawn entirely, and another is limited to a single Defendant,” Howard wrote in his October 15 memorandum.

He said he reviewed the defense replies, Diddy’s criminal trial record and his own memory before seeking the changes. He argued that waiting for the usual process could leave the judge weighing claims he had since corrected.

As AllHipHop previously reported, Howard sought to remove claims that he was confined for about 12 hours during a December 2016 Miami encounter and that Diddy’s security team took his belongings. He said he concluded those statements were inaccurate. Those corrections came in his October 15 papers, before the new defense response.

Cassie also fought the proposed changes in a separate October 19 brief. Her lawyers said Howard raised new legal theories she had not had a fair chance to address. They also argued that he had not shown why the request was urgent.

Her team asked Judge Hwang to deny the request. Her lawyers attached an unsigned proposed order for the judge to consider. It was not a ruling.

The filings listed the dismissal hearing for October 21 before Judge Hwang.