More than a dozen lawsuits target Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs as he sits in jail

Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is currently in federal custody awaiting trial on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.

His arrest in New York came amid a series of civil suits alleging sexual assault and physical violence, some going back to the 1990s.

More than a dozen people have filed lawsuits against the rapper, accusing him of using his influence in the entertainment industry to do everything from drugging, assaulting and raping people.

The latest batch of lawsuits include one from a man who was 16 years old at the time and said the rapper told him to unclothe at a party in New York in 1998.

The Harlem-born rapper has denied any criminal wrongdoing.Footage shows raids at Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s properties10

01:00Aerial footage shows raids at Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s properties

Prosecutors have reportedly been in touch with several witnesses who worked under Combs and some of the accusers currently suing him, and have left open the possibility of more charges.

The singer-producer has pleaded not guilty to the three felony counts against him and his attorney told reporters he was a “fighter” who was “not afraid of the charges”.

Combs is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a federal jail notorious for its violence and poor inmate care.

MDC includes an extra-security section with barracks-style housing reserved for special detainees, and US media report that Combs is sharing the space with convicted cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.

His legal team sought his release pending trial because of the jail’s “horrific” conditions, but prosecutors argued he posed “a serious flight risk” and Combs has twice been denied bail.

If convicted, he faces a sentence of anywhere from 15 years to life in prison.

Who are his accusers?

Combs’s 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 last November, the model and musician alleged he had “trapped” her for over a decade in a “cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking”.

Combs “vehemently” denied the claims. A day after the suit landed in court, both parties said they had “amicably” settled the case, though Combs’s attorney said the settlement was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing”.

But in May, CNN obtained surveillance footage that showed the entertainer-turned-entrepreneur assaulting Ms Ventura in a 2016 altercation that is detailed in her suit.

Combs finally acknowledged the incident in an Instagram video two days later, saying he was “disgusted” by what he had done.

“My behaviour on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions,” he said.

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Ten others – including one man – have since come forward with their own claims.

Joi Dickerson-Neal, who said Ms Ventura had inspired her to speak out, alleged 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 Combs blasted the lawsuit as “purely a money grab” and have asked for it to be dismissed.

Liza Gardner accused 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 Combs had visited her home the next day and choked her until she passed out. Combs’s 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 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, 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 Combs’s 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 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 sex workers and top celebrities aboard.

Crystal McKinney claimed she had been drugged and sexually assaulted by 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 Combs as a student at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology in 1994, detailed “four terrifying sexual encounters” through the early 2000s.

Adria English, a former adult-film actress who worked with Combs in the 2000s, said he had used her as a “sexual pawn for the pleasure and financial benefit of others” during the “White Parties” he hosted at his homes in New York and Miami.

Dawn Richards, who once sang in two Combs-assembled groups including Danity Kane, said she had personally witnessed his violence against Ms Ventura and that he had threatened her life when she tried to intervene.

Thalia Graves, who is backed by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, claimed Combs and his bodyguard Joseph Sherman had sedated, overpowered and tied her up before recording themselves raping her and later distributing the sex tape.

Representatives for Combs have denied the accusations against him.

Six anonymous accusers: Six lawsuits were filed on 14 October by four men and two women. One of the women accused Mr Combs of raping her at a hotel and another suit accused the rapper of ordering a 16-year-old boy to undress when the teen was talking to him about breaking into the music industry.

Mr Combs’ legal team has dismissed the 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 said in a statement, adding: “Mr Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone – adult or minor, man or woman.”

source: BBC