Lawyer Seeks Diddy's Diamond in the Rough

Wed., Sep. 12, 2007 5:45 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

Sean "Diddy" Combs has the man he supposedly brawled with on Oscar night wrapped around his finger. Or fingers.

An attorney for Gerard Rechnitzer, who sued Combs for assault and battery in March, filed court papers Monday requesting that the hip-hop mogul be ordered to produce photographs of the rings he was wearing in the wee hours of Feb. 25, when he allegedly threw down with his client outside of celebrity hotspot Teddy's at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel.

The plaintiff wants a closer look at the jewelry to see if their shape and size are consistent with his injuries, attorney Michael M. Marzban explained.

"Needless to say, Combs does not wear simple rings," states the motion filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. "The rings he wore when he struck [Rechnitzer] are important and critical to the biomechanics of this case."

Marzban states that he has been asking for information from Combs for months but that further legal action was necessary because the No Way Out rapper had not responded to his repeated requests, despite having been fairly reachable while attending to various projects in the U.S. over the past year.

"After several conversations with [the defendant's] attorney, it became apparent to me that [Combs'] constant partying both in the United States and abroad took priority," the filing reads.

Rechnitzer's camp is also requesting that the famed jet-setter turn over documents that will prove he was at Teddy's that night and indicate how much alcohol he consumed, as well as provide info on the members of Combs' security detail who, according to the lawsuit, gave the plaintiff leave to approach Combs.

The newly single father of four was chatting up Rechnitzer's girlfriend after leaving a post-Academy Awards bash, when the L.A. real-estate broker asked Combs' entourage if he could join them, the complaint states.

Rechnitzer was just standing there, he alleges, when Combs looked at him "in a threatening and ominous manner" and yelled, "What the f--k you looking at, dude?" followed by, "I'll smack flames out your ass!"

Combs then shoved him into a parked vehicle, pushed his girlfriend (who had supposedly refused to leave with the Sean John entrepreneur) and tried to spit on one of their friends, Rechnitzer claims. After which, Combs allegedly stared them down menacingly through the open window of his vehicle as he was chauffeured away.

The rapper's camp called the suit "completely baseless...just another example of an opportunist seeking to fabricate a lawsuit based on a flat-out lie," according to attorney Benjamin Brafman.