Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs charged with sex trafficking and racketeering, unsealed indictment shows

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/sep/17/sean-diddy-combs-indictment-charges

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Combs had been arrested in New York, months after federal authorities raided his homes in Los Angeles and Miami

Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Tuesday that alleged he also engaged in kidnapping, forced labor, bribery and other crimes.

Combs was arrested in connection with the charges late on Monday in Manhattan, roughly six months after federal authorities conducting a sex-trafficking investigation raided his luxurious homes in Los Angeles and Miami.

The three-count, 14-page indictment alleges racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

The document contains remarkably graphic details, including that Combs would force sex trafficking victims to engage in group sex acts with associates of his that he referred to as “freak offs” – sometimes for days at a time – while he recorded video of the encounters and masturbated to them. The encounters would last for days and were so physically exerting on him and his victims – whom he would force to ingest drugs – that all “typically received IV fluids to recover” in the aftermath, the indictment said.

“For decades, SEAN COMBS, a/k/a ‘Puff Daddy,’ a/k/a ‘P Diddy,’ a/k/a ‘Diddy,’ a/k/a ‘PD,’ a/k/a ‘Love,’ the defendant, abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct,” the indictment reads.

Comb’s alleged criminal conspiracy, the indictment says, “relied on employees, resources, and influence of the multi-faceted business empire that he led and controlled – creating a criminal enterprise whose members and associates engaged in, and attempted to engage in, among other crimes, sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice”.

The indictment made it a point to say that Combs would also task his employees with providing everything from lubricant to drugs for the alleged freak offs.

“Freak Offs occurred regularly, sometimes lasted multiple days, and often involved multiple commercial sex workers,” the complaint says. Combs would direct the sex acts at the center of the freaks offs while he also “distributed a variety of controlled substances to victims, in part to keep the victims obedient and compliant”.

The attention to detail attributed to Combs for the freak offs is staggering. Not only would his supervisors, security, hotel staff and assistants stock up on drugs and lubricant, they would also procure baby oil, extra linens, specialized lighting as well as book hotel rooms and travel arrangements.

When investigators raided Comb’s homes in Miami and Los Angeles in March, the items they seized included drugs, more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant and three AR-15 rifles with a drum-style magazine.

Contained in the complaint are apparent references to singer Casandra Ventura, Combs’s former girlfriend who came forward with allegations of sexual abuse last year that Combs quickly settled out of court. He was recorded beating her in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016, video of which surfaced only earlier this year.

The indictment suggests Combs “attempted to bribe [a hotel] staff member to ensure silence” after that assault, which the indictment describes without naming Ventura.

The government adds that – from at least 2009 – Combs “assaulted women by, among other things, striking, punching, dragging, throwing objects at, and kicking them”. The video from Ventura’s assault had been the most publicly apparent evidence of that at the time of the indictment unsealed on Tuesday, which had actually been handed up in secret four days earlier.

Since last year, Combs has been sued by people who say he subjected them to physical or sexual abuse. He has denied many of those allegations, and his lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said outside a federal courthouse in New York City on Tuesday morning that Combs would plead not guilty.

Agnifilo also said he personally would “fight like hell” to try to get his client released from custody.

Of Combs, Agnifilo said, “His spirits are good. He’s confident.”

Combs, 54, was recognized as one of the most influential figures in hip-hop before the flood of allegations against him turned him into an industry pariah.

That flood began in November, when Ventura – the R&B vocalist known as Cassie – filed a lawsuit saying he had beaten and raped her for years. She accused Combs of coercing her, and others, into unwanted sex in drug-fueled settings.

Combs settled the suit in a single day, an unusually fast out-of-court resolution that many interpreted as a sign that he was worried about his legal exposure.

Nonetheless, the settlement did not prevent CNN from airing hotel security footage in May that showed Combs punching and kicking Cassie and throwing her on a floor eight years earlier.

After the video aired, Combs apologized, saying, “I was disgusted when I did it.” His apology contradicted years of denials that he was abusive.

Combs and his attorneys, however, denied similar allegations made by others in a string of lawsuits.

Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Cassie, said in a statement on Tuesday that “neither Ms Ventura nor I have any comment”.

“We appreciate your understanding and if that changes, we will certainly let you know,” he added.

A woman said Combs raped her two decades ago when she was 17. A music producer sued, saying Combs forced him to have sex with prostitutes. Another woman, April Lampros, said Combs subjected her to “terrifying sexual encounters” starting when she was a college student in 1994.

More recently, the singer Dawn Richard – who formed part of the Combs-founded girl group Danity Kane – sued him for sexual assault and inhumane treatment. And Combs’s legal team also moved to overturn a $100m judgment awarded by default to an incarcerated man in Michigan after the plaintiff’s allegations were not contested in court by the music mogul.

Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Records, has gotten out of legal trouble in criminal court before.

In 2001, he was acquitted of charges related to a Manhattan nightclub shooting two years earlier that injured three people. His then protege, Shyne, was convicted of assault and other charges and served about eight years in prison.