Richard, a former member of the R&B group Danity Kane, sued Combs in 2024 alleging years of mistreatment during her time signed to his Bad Boy Records label. Her complaint accused Combs of sexual assault, battery, and inflicting emotional distress, with some events dating back to 2009.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla, a federal judge in Manhattan, ruled that most of those claims were time-barred under New York law, which generally requires civil lawsuits alleging such misconduct to be filed within one year of the alleged incident. The judge noted that some of Richard’s allegations were filed “over a decade” past that deadline.
In a colorful turn of phrase that drew attention, Judge Failla wrote that the court’s decision was based strictly on legal timeliness, not on the credibility or severity of the accusations. “The court’s ruling exists independently of its disapprobation of the factual allegations, which, if true, are execrable,” she wrote.
The judge clarified that Richard may pursue one claim in state court. That claim, according to court documents, concerns an allegation that the judge determined was not definitively barred by the statute of limitations. The ruling did not specify the nature of that single claim.
Comb’s legal team applauded the dismissal, arguing that the lawsuit was a meritless attempt to capitalize on the public attention surrounding his criminal case.
The decision comes amid a broader legal reckoning for Combs. In September 2023, he was indicted on federal sex-trafficking and racketeering charges and has been held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. That case remains pending.
Since the indictment, more than two dozen civil lawsuits have been filed against Combs accusing him of sexual assault, abuse, and related misconduct, some dating back decades. Richard’s case was among the first of those to reach a formal ruling on timing.
Attorney for Richard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The case is among a string of high-profile civil lawsuits against celebrities that have been dismissed on statute-of-limitations grounds, reflecting a recurring tension between the substance of allegations and the procedural bar of time.