NOTE: The next article accommodates disturbing content material. Please learn at your personal discretion.
One other girl sued Sean “Diddy” Combs on Tuesday, alleging the music mogul and his head of safety raped her and recorded it on video at his New York recording studio in 2001.
The lawsuit filed in federal court docket in New York, the most recent of a number of comparable fits towards Combs, comes per week after he was arrested and a federal intercourse trafficking indictment towards him was unsealed.
Thalia Graves alleges that when she was 25 and courting an govt who labored for Combs in the summertime of 2001, Combs and Joseph Sherman lured her to a gathering at Dangerous Boy Recording Studios. She mentioned they picked her up in an SUV and in the course of the experience gave her a drink “seemingly laced with a drug.”
In response to the lawsuit, Graves misplaced consciousness and awoke to search out herself sure inside Combs’ workplace and lounge on the studio. The 2 males raped her, slapped her, slammed her head towards a pool desk and ignored her screams and cries for assist, the lawsuit alleges.
Thalia Graves attends a press convention on Sept. 24, 2024, in Los Angeles after suing Sean “Diddy” Combs and accusing him of rape in 2001.
AP Photograph/Chris Pizzello
At a information convention in Los Angeles with considered one of her attorneys, Gloria Allred, Graves mentioned she has suffered from “flashbacks, nightmares and intrusive ideas” within the years since.
Get day by day Nationwide information
Get the day’s high information, political, financial, and present affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox as soon as a day.
“It has been exhausting for me to belief others to type wholesome relationships and even really feel protected in my very own pores and skin,” Graves mentioned, crying as she learn from a press release.
She mentioned it’s “a ache that reaches into your very core of who you might be and leaves emotional scars which will by no means totally heal.”
Combs stays jailed with out bail in New York on federal prices alleging that he ran an enormous community that facilitated sexual crimes and dedicated surprising acts of violence, utilizing blackmail and different techniques to guard Combs and people near him.
He pleaded not responsible to racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking. His lawyer mentioned he’s harmless and can struggle to clear his title. His representatives didn’t instantly reply to an e-mail looking for touch upon the most recent lawsuit. There was no fast indication from the lawsuit or from Combs’ representatives whether or not Sherman had a separate lawyer who may touch upon the allegations.
The lawsuit was filed beneath the New York Metropolis Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Safety Act and comes throughout a two-year window that suspends authorized deadlines and permits sexual assault victims to sue over abuse that may in any other case be too outdated to pursue.
Allred declined to say whether or not her shopper had spoken to investigators in Combs’ legal case. The indictment in that case mentions solely allegations since 2008.
Graves’ lawsuit additionally alleges that late final 12 months, after Combs’ former singing protege and girlfriend Cassie filed a lawsuit that started the surge of allegations towards him, Graves realized by her former boyfriend that Combs had recorded her rape, proven it to others and bought it as pornography.
The Related Press doesn’t usually title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused, except they arrive ahead publicly as Graves and Cassie, whose authorized title is Casandra Ventura, have carried out.
Graves’ lawsuit says each Combs and Sherman contacted her a number of instances within the years after the assault, threatening repercussions if she advised anybody what had occurred to her. She was in a divorce and custody struggle on the time and feared dropping her younger son if she revealed something, the go well with says.
Graves mentioned on the information convention that the guilt and disgrace connected “typically made me really feel nugatory, remoted and typically chargeable for what occurred to me.”
Lawyer Gloria Allred, left, and Thalia Graves attend a press convention on Sept. 24, 2024, in Los Angeles after suing Sean “Diddy” Combs and accusing him of rape in 2001.
AP Photograph/Chris Pizzello
The lawsuit seeks damages to be decided at trial and for all copies of the video to be accounted for and destroyed.
The lawsuit additionally names as defendants a number of corporations owned by Combs, the three-time Grammy winner and founding father of Dangerous Boy Data who was among the many most influential hip-hop producers and executives of the previous three many years.
—
In the event you or somebody is experiencing abuse or is concerned in an abusive scenario, please go to the Canadian Useful resource Centre for Victims of Crime for assist. They’re additionally reachable toll-free at 1-877-232-2610.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
