Shawn Carter lost his extortion appeal against Tony Buzbee on Sept. 9. On Sept. 24 he obtained a sworn declaration from Buzbee’s former client saying she never met him. By the weekend he was back before the same California appellate panel with a petition for rehearing, calling her reversal “explosive new evidence” that should let his “meritorious claims to proceed,” Rolling Stone reported Monday. The series of events is raising even more questions, leading many to question whether Jane Doe’s lawyers were threatened, compromised, or both.
Buzbee’s answer was one sentence: “sending a basic demand letter prior to filing suit is not and will never be ‘extortion.’” That is the legal question, and he is probably right about it. The appellate court already said so. But it is the wrong game. Buzbee has been playing checkers for two years, while Carter and his lawyers have been setting up Jane Doe and her attorneys, step by step.
The Chess Moves Carter’s Attorneys Made
Look at Carter’s moves in order. February 2025: Buzbee dismisses Doe’s suit the day after his New York admission is denied, and one week later Carter’s investigators are on Doe’s porch with a recorder. March 2025: Carter sues Buzbee, Fortney and Doe in Alabama, her home state, where she has no lawyer and Buzbee has no license. March 2026: the case transfers to Manhattan. July: a 63-page complaint that describes Doe’s psychiatric history in detail, so that when she signs for him nobody can say she was a credible witness against him. September: Doe gets “independent” counsel in Mobile, signs a 12-page declaration, and is dismissed the same night, without prejudice. Four days after that, the declaration is in Los Angeles as the reason to reopen a case Carter had already lost. Each move set up the next.
Where Is The Police Report?
Here is the question neither side wants asked. If David Fortney believed, on Feb. 13, 2025, that a billionaire had threatened to kill his client, a 13-year-old rape victim in his own telling, where is the report?
A lawyer who learns of a credible threat to murder a witness calls the FBI. There is no report on any docket in New York, Alabama, California or Texas. Buzbee has posted about this case dozens of times and never mentioned one. Carter’s lawyers say the threat was invented “to convince her to dismiss the Underlying Action, so that he and Buzbee could avoid sanctions for their unauthorized practice of law.” Doe’s new declaration softens it to Fortney saying it “was dangerous to speak about the case at all.”
Either the threat was real and Buzbee’s firm sat on a felony, or it was not real and Carter is right. There is no third option, and Buzbee has never picked one.
An 8 Hour Drive to Alabama to tell Jane Doe that “Jay-Z Was Going to Kill [Her]”
Carter’s rehearing petition and Roberta Kaplan’s letters lean on one line in the declaration: that Buzbee’s firm filed “without conducting any independent investigation.” Read the rest of the declaration. David Fortney sent her the 2000 VMA footage and asked her to find herself.
He called her father. He flew to Alabama after the NBC interview to go over “discrepancies.” He may have put her on a polygraph on Dec. 16, 2024. That is an investigation. It is an investigation that turned up problems, which is a different thing from no investigation at all, and it is described in Carter’s own exhibit.
Buzbee says “at least four” lawyers took her story before he did and “she gave the exact same story to each.” Several witnesses have since come forward in support of her original account.
What is missing, is what happened between Buzbee sending a demand letter to Carter’s attorney, Alex Spiro, and the sudden urgency to drop the lawsuit with prejudice. Then, having David Fortney drive to Jane Doe’s home in Alabama, an 8 hour drive each way, and relay a message that “Jay-Z was going to kill [her] if she did not drop the lawsuit.”
The series of events reads more like cloak-and-dagger then good faith litigation. At some point, something catastrophic happened, that led Buzbee to drop Jane Doe’s case, with prejudice, with no benefit to Jane Doe. Fortney’s drive to Alabama raises even more questions, including why Fortney never reported the threats, to police or federal law enforcement.
The Room Buzbee Was In On Friday
Two days after his lawyers called Doe’s declaration “bought-and-paid-for,” Buzbee posted from Tilman Fertitta’s house. It was a preview for the Houston Children’s Charity gala, which raises money for wheelchair vans, and the post is sincere. It ends: “Frances and I enjoyed hanging with @50cent,” the man whose Netflix series “Sean Combs: The Reckoning” used footage Combs claims Rodney ‘Lil Rod’ Jones stole. 50 Cent, real name Curtis Jackson, has made announcements that he is developing a new documentary about Shawn Carter.
Fertitta was appointed as a United States ambassador to Italy by Donald Trump. He and Buzbee are the two biggest checks behind Galveston County Sheriff Jimmy Fullen, whom Buzbee represented when the state tried to pull his license. Fertitta also chairs the Houston Police Foundation, gave it $2.5 million for a tactical training center that carries his family’s name and another $2.5 million for a firearms range that will too, and hosts the gala at his River Oaks mansion that raised $1.1 million for it last year. Houston is Beyonce Knowles Carter’s hometown.
Fertitta’s family is Galveston Sicilian, and Galveston has a history: when the Maceo brothers’ syndicate, which ran the island’s gambling, prostitution and bootlegging for three decades, wound down in the 1950s, it “transferred controlling interest of most of their Galveston empire to a new group dominated by the Fertitta family.” That was seventy years ago, before Tilman Fertitta was born.
Recently, Tilman Fertitta has been named in a civil lawsuit alleging RICO, and his lawyer is accused of threatening a man and his family, after a business deal went south.
A music industry source we spoke to made reference to Carter’s attorney, Alex Spiro, as having President Donald Trump in his pocket. Controversial attorney Alex Spiro has been heavily mentioned in the Epstein files, including in emails involving former Trump campaign manager, Steve Bannon.
Trump had previously pardoned former cocaine trafficker and Roc Nation CEO, Desiree Perez, and more recently Carter’s longtime-friend, Emory Jones.
Victim Turned Into A Witness Nobody Can Use
Both sides now agree Jane Doe is unreliable. Carter’s complaint says so at length. Buzbee’s strike motion says so to discredit her new declaration. The one person who was raped at 13, by her own account in every version, has been turned into a witness nobody can use, and whichever way the California panel rules, she will be the exhibit.
Carter is playing for a finding that Buzbee’s demand letter was extortion, which would make him the first celebrity to convert a rape accusation into a judgment against the accuser’s lawyer. We asked last week whether Carter was tampering with victims. The better question now is who is protecting them, and the answer on this record is no one.
Right now, it looks like Jane Doe was used as a pawn, in a nasty, corrupt, game.
Sources: Rolling Stone (Sept. 25 and 28, 2026); Bloomberg Law (Aug. 21, 2026); Carter v. The Buzbee Law Firm, No. B347898 (Cal. Ct. App.); Carter v. Buzbee, No. 1:26-cv-02775-DEH (S.D.N.Y.), Dkts. 145, 166-1, 170, 171 and 172; Complex (May 30, 2026); Houston Chronicle (Oct. 2024 and 2025) on Fertitta, Buzbee and Sheriff Fullen; Wikipedia, “Sam Maceo,” and sources cited there; @tonybuzbee on Instagram (Sept. 26, 2026); Paul Smith’s reporting at Shockya. This is an opinion article.
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