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 keeping 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 wishes, defend his repute, 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 properties 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, stated exterior the courthouse Tuesday morning that Combs would plead not responsible and that he would “struggle like hell” to attempt to get his shopper launched from custody.
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Of Combs, Agnifilo stated, “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 workers to assist cover all of it.
The indictment additionally describes Combs as the pinnacle of a prison enterprise engaged in or trying to have interaction in actions together with intercourse trafficking, pressured labour, interstate transportation for functions of prostitution, drug offences, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.
Combs, 54, was acknowledged as one 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 overwhelmed 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 resort safety footage exhibiting Combs punching and kicking Cassie and throwing her on a ground. After the video aired, Combs apologized, saying, “I used to be disgusted once I did it.”
Combs and his attorneys, nevertheless, denied related allegations made by others in a string of lawsuits.
Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Cassie, stated in a press release Tuesday that “neither Ms. Ventura nor I’ve any remark.”
“We recognize your understanding and if that adjustments, we will definitely let you realize,” he added.
A lady stated Combs raped her twenty years in the past when she was 17. A music producer sued, saying Combs pressured him to have intercourse with prostitutes. One other lady, April Lampros, stated Combs subjected her to “terrifying sexual encounters,” beginning when she was a school pupil in 1994.
The AP doesn’t sometimes 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 bother 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.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
