A California federal judge on Tuesday threw out a civil lawsuit against Maui Police Chief John Pelletier and numerous other high-profile defendants, including Sean “Diddy” Combs, that painted a wild tale of kidnapping, gang rape and abuse of power.
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin put an end to the case after the plaintiffs — a California resident named Ashley Parham and a mother and son identified in court records only as Jane Doe and John Doe — failed to move forward with the necessary legal steps more than a year after it was first filed.
“I absolutely feel vindicated,” Pelletier told Civil Beat on Tuesday, “but there’s no amount that is going to take away the hurt and the pain that this has caused my family.”
The case was originally filed in October 2024 by Parham who said she was gang raped and physically abused at a home in Northern California in 2018 by Combs and others. An amended complaint filed in March brought in Pelletier, who was accused of kidnapping the Does at gunpoint in Las Vegas and driving them to the California home, as well as former Miami Dolphins star receiver Odell Beckham Jr. and well-known comedian Drew “Druski” Desbordes.
The amended complaint alleged that Pelletier, who was a captain with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department at the time, had posed as a California county sheriff to prevent an investigation into the incident.
Maui Mayor Richard Bissen immediately asked the Maui Police Commission to put Pelletier on leave until the lawsuit was resolved. The commission rejected that request, saying the allegations were unproven and the chief shouldn’t be subjected to professional harm over unsubstantiated claims.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier’s attorney Keola Whittaker addresses the Maui Police Commission in March after Mayor Richard Bissen requested Pelletier be put on leave pending resolution of a civil lawsuit filed by a California woman. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2025)
Pelletier, Desbordes, Beckham and others quickly produced documentation showing they were elsewhere when the alleged assault and kidnapping took place and could not have been involved. One defendant was even in jail at the time. Pelletier had records showing he was either working or on call in 2018 when the plaintiffs said he was driving them across the desert, sex trafficking them along the way.
Defense attorneys also began questioning whether the Does even existed because they had never been identified, even to the defense, many months after the case had been filed.
At a hearing in July, Lin made it clear she was perplexed as to why Desbordes in particular wasn’t being dropped from the case after proving that in 2018 he was living at home in Georgia with his mother, long before he was a celebrated performer. But the attorneys for Parham and the Does — Ariel Mitchell and Shawn Perez — continued to pursue the case.
Desbordes and Beckham both filed motions for sanctions asking that the two lawyers, Mitchell and Perez, be ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars to reimburse them for legal fees. Each said they had spent at least $50,000 on the case so far.
In October, as the judge was considering the sanctions, Mitchell and Perez abruptly withdrew from the case leaving Parham and the Does to find other legal counsel. Lin gave them a few weeks to come up with new attorneys but the plaintiffs told the court no one would take the case.
The biggest problem, Lin wrote in her Tuesday order, was lack of prosecution. Since the original filing in October 2024 no defendant in the case was ever served despite federal court rules that require service within 90 days. The judge allowed several extensions but finally threw it out.
She also declined to impose sanctions against Mitchell and Perez.
Keola Whittaker, Pelletier’s attorney, said Tuesday that a case never really starts until paperwork is served on the defendants. Without service, defendants can’t proceed with a defense, including moving for a dismissal.
He called the situation very unusual and said Pelletier was never given a legal opportunity to defend himself.
“Their plan really was to ruin his reputation,” Whittaker said.
It remains a mystery why Pelletier was singled out as an enforcer for Combs and dragged into the lawsuit. Records in the case indicate it was the Does who produced a picture of Pelletier that the plaintiffs’ attorneys then used to identify him as the person who kidnapped the Does and drove them to the house in California.
Earlier this year, Civil Beat asked Mitchell and Perez to explain how Pelletier came to be involved and how the Does even came to produce a picture of him but never got a response.
“We’re still putting those pieces together and connecting the dots,” Pelletier said Tuesday. “This was weaponizing the justice system in a failed coup.”
Whittaker said Pelletier will be exploring legal remedies against the plaintiffs’ attorneys and others who might be behind the lawsuit and falsely brought Pelletier into the middle of it.
“The chief has had to put thousands of dollars out of his own pocket and may try to recover that now that he’s been completely vindicated,” Whittaker said. “He shouldn’t have had to shoulder this all alone.”
Read Judge Rita Lin’s ruling:
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