Sean “Diddy” Combs was due in court docket Tuesday on federal intercourse trafficking and racketeering costs that accuse him of hitting and abusing girls for over a decade and presiding over an empire of sexual crimes.
The music mogul “engaged in a persistent and pervasive sample of abuse towards girls and different people,” in accordance with an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
Detailing allegations courting to 2009, the indictment accuses him of abusing, threatening and coercing girls for years “to satisfy his sexual needs, defend his status, and conceal his conduct.”
Combs had been arrested late Monday in Manhattan, roughly six months after federal authorities conducting a intercourse trafficking investigation raided his luxurious houses in Los Angeles and Miami.
Over the previous yr, Combs has been sued by a number of individuals who say he subjected them to bodily or sexual abuse. He has denied a lot of these allegations, and his lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, mentioned outdoors the courthouse Tuesday morning that Combs would plead not responsible and that he would “combat like hell” to attempt to get his consumer launched from custody.
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Of Combs, Agnifilo mentioned, “His spirits are good. He’s assured.”
Marc Agnifilo, lawyer for Sean “Diddy” Combs, centre, speaks to members of the media whereas arriving at court docket in New York, US, on Tuesday, Sep. 17, 2024.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg through Getty Photographs
The indictment accuses Combs of hanging, punching and dragging girls on quite a few events, throwing objects and kicking them — and enlisting his private assistants, safety and family employees to assist conceal all of it.
The indictment additionally describes Combs as the top of a legal enterprise engaged in or trying to have interaction in actions together with intercourse trafficking, compelled labour, interstate transportation for functions of prostitution, drug offences, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.
Combs, 54, was acknowledged as some of the influential figures in hip-hop earlier than a flood of allegations that emerged over the previous yr turned him into an business pariah.
In November, his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, whose authorized title is Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit saying he had crushed and raped her for years. She accused Combs of coercing her, and others, into undesirable intercourse in drug-fuelled settings.
The swimsuit was settled in someday however months later CNN aired lodge safety footage exhibiting Combs punching and kicking Cassie and throwing her on a flooring. After the video aired, Combs apologized, saying, “I used to be disgusted once I did it.”
Combs and his legal professionals, nevertheless, denied comparable allegations made by others in a string of lawsuits.
Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Cassie, mentioned in an announcement Tuesday that “neither Ms. Ventura nor I’ve any remark.”
“We admire your understanding and if that modifications, we will definitely let you recognize,” he added.
A lady mentioned Combs raped her 20 years in the past when she was 17. A music producer sued, saying Combs compelled him to have intercourse with prostitutes. One other lady, April Lampros, mentioned Combs subjected her to “terrifying sexual encounters,” beginning when she was a university pupil in 1994.
The AP doesn’t usually title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused until they arrive ahead publicly, as Cassie and Lampros did.
Combs, the founding father of Unhealthy Boy Information, has gotten out of authorized hassle earlier than.
In 2001, he was acquitted of costs associated to a Manhattan nightclub capturing two years earlier that injured three individuals. His then-protege, Shyne, was convicted of assault and different costs and served about eight years in jail.
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Related Press author Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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