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Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is at present in federal custody awaiting trial on fees of racketeering and intercourse trafficking.
His arrest in New York got here amid a collection of civil fits alleging sexual assault and bodily violence, some going again to the Nineties.
More than two dozen individuals have filed lawsuits in opposition to the rapper, accusing him of utilizing his affect within the leisure trade to do every little thing from drugging, assaulting and raping individuals.
The newest batch of lawsuits embrace allegations from two males who had been underage on the time of the alleged sexual assaults. Both described being hopeful that Mr Combs may assist jumpstart their careers within the leisure trade.
The Harlem-born rapper has denied all of the allegations, each these specified by lawsuits and in his federal indictment.
Mr Combs, 54, was arrested on Monday 16 September in a New York resort on fees of racketeering conspiracy, intercourse trafficking by power and transportation for functions of prostitution.
Federal prosecutors have accused him of “creating a criminal enterprise” by which he “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfil his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct”.
They mentioned Mr Combs had used medicine, violence and the facility of his standing to “lure female victims” into prolonged intercourse acts known as “Freak Offs”.
They additionally revealed they’d uncovered firearms, ammunition and greater than 1,000 bottles of lubricant throughout raids on Mr Combs’ properties in Miami and Los Angeles in March.
Prosecutors have reportedly been in contact with a number of witnesses who labored below Mr Combs and a number of the accusers at present suing him, and have left open the potential for extra fees.
The singer-producer has pleaded not responsible to the three felony counts in opposition to him and his legal professional instructed reporters he was a “fighter” who was “not afraid of the charges”.
Mr Combs is at present being held on the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a federal jail infamous for its violence and poor inmate care.
MDC consists of an extra-security part with barracks-style housing reserved for particular detainees, and US media report that Mr Combs is sharing the house with convicted cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
His authorized staff sought his launch pending trial due to the jail’s “horrific” circumstances, however prosecutors argued he posed “a serious flight risk” and Mr Combs has twice been denied bail.
If convicted, he faces a sentence of wherever from 15 years to life in jail.
Mr Combs’ former on-and-off girlfriend, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, was first to blow the whistle on the self-proclaimed “bad boy for life”.
In a lawsuit filed final November, the mannequin and musician alleged he had “trapped” her for over a decade in a “cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking”.
Mr Combs “vehemently” denied the claims. A day after the swimsuit landed in court docket, each events mentioned they’d “amicably” settled the case, although Mr Combs’ legal professional mentioned the settlement was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing”.
But in May, CNN obtained surveillance footage that confirmed the entertainer-turned-entrepreneur assaulting Ms Ventura in a 2016 altercation that’s detailed in her swimsuit.
Mr Combs lastly acknowledged the incident in an Instagram video two days later, saying he was “disgusted” by what he had carried out.
“My behaviour on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions,” he said.
At least 27 others – including several men – have since come forward with their own claims. Here are details from some of the cases – many have included plaintiffs who filed anonymously.
Joi Dickerson-Neal, who said Ms Ventura had inspired her to speak out, alleged Mr Combs had “intentionally drugged” and raped her when she was a Syracuse University student in 1991, and had made her a victim of revenge porn by filming the assault and showing it to others.
Representatives for Mr Combs blasted the lawsuit as “purely a money grab” and have asked for it to be dismissed.
Liza Gardner accused Mr Combs and R&B crooner Aaron Hall of plying her with drinks and then forcing her to have sex with them against her will when she was 16 years old. She also claimed that Mr Combs had visited her home the next day and choked her until she passed out. Mr Combs’ attorney slammed the claims as “bogus”.
The three initial lawsuits were brought under New York state’s Adult Survivors Act, which granted adult victims a one-year window to bring claims against their abusers regardless of statutes of limitation.
A woman so far identified only as Jane Doe claimed that Mr Combs, former Bad Boy Records president Harve Pierre and a third person had violently gang-raped her in a New York City studio when she was a 17-year-old high school student.
A few days later, Mr Combs broke his silence on social media against “sickening allegations… by individuals looking for a quick pay day”. His attorneys are seeking to dismiss the “baseless and time-barred” case. Mr Pierre has meanwhile called the suit a “tale of fiction”.
Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, a producer and videographer who worked on Mr Combs’ most recent album, accused the mogul of running an illegal racketeering enterprise in which he was forced to procure drugs, solicit sex workers and tape sex acts. He also claimed Mr Combs and actor Cuba Gooding Jr had groped him without consent.
Grace O’Marcaigh, who worked on a yacht leased by the Combs family in 2022, accused the rapper and his son, Christian “King” Combs, of sexual assault. She blamed them for creating an “environment of debauchery” with suspected intercourse employees and prime celebrities aboard.
Crystal McKinney claimed she had been drugged and sexually assaulted by Mr Combs following a Men’s Fashion Week event in 2003 when she was 22 years old. She also said he had subsequently “blackballed” her in the modelling world.
April Lampros, who says she met Mr Combs as a student at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology in 1994, detailed “4 terrifying sexual encounters” through the early 2000s.
Adria English, a former adult-film actress who worked with Mr Combs in the 2000s, said he had used her as a “sexual pawn for the pleasure and monetary good thing about others” through the “White Parties” he hosted at his properties in New York and Miami.
Dawn Richards, who as soon as sang in two Combs-assembled teams together with Danity Kane, mentioned she had personally witnessed his violence in opposition to Ms Ventura and that he had threatened her life when she tried to intervene.
Thalia Graves, who’s backed by celeb lawyer Gloria Allred, claimed Mr Combs and his bodyguard Joseph Sherman had sedated, overpowered and tied her up earlier than recording themselves raping her and later distributing the intercourse tape.
Six nameless accusers: Six lawsuits had been filed on 14 October by 4 males and two ladies. One of the ladies accused Mr Combs of raping her at a resort and one other swimsuit accused the rapper of ordering a 16-year-old boy to undress when the teenager was speaking to him about breaking into the music trade.
Ashley Parham filed a lawsuit on 15 October claiming that Mr Combs had raped her as “payback” for a remark she made suggesting that he was chargeable for the homicide of rapper Tupac Shakur. Shakur’s homicide has by no means been solved, however a person at present on trial for his homicide has beforehand claimed that Mr Combs had paid for him to be killed.
Mr Combs’ authorized staff has dismissed the flurry of lawsuits as “clear attempts to garner publicity.”
“Mr Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defences, and the integrity of the judicial process,” his attorneys mentioned in an announcement, including: “Mr Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone – adult or minor, man or woman.”
Nine more lawsuits were filed anonymously between 20 October and 28 of October. Many of the lawsuits were filed by adults who said they were underage at the time of the alleged sexual assaults.
Two male accusers said in lawsuits that they were sexually assaulted while meeting with the mogul about their careers in the music industry while they were minors.
Several of the lawsuits included details that the incidents happened at some of Mr Combs’ notorious parties.
Five extra nameless lawsuits had been filed in opposition to Mr Combs on 19 November from three males and two ladies. The fits centre on allegations of sexual assault at events with no less than two of them outlining rape accusations in opposition to Mr Combs.
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