Sean “Diddy” Combs presided over a sordid empire of sexual crimes, coercing and abusing girls for years whereas utilizing blackmail and surprising acts of violence to maintain his victims in line, in accordance with an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
The music mogul pleaded not responsible, standing to talk, after listening to the allegations whereas displaying little response, his uncuffed arms folded in his lap.
Federal prosecutors known as Combs harmful and urged that he be jailed with out bail.
“Mr. Combs physically and sexually abused victims for decades. He used the vast resources of his company to facilitate his abuse and cover up his crimes. Simply put, he is a serial abuser and a serial obstructor,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson informed a court docket. She additionally stated he had “extensive and exhaustive history of obstruction of justice,” together with alleged bribery and witness intimidation.
His legal professionals, in the meantime, proposed that he be launched on a $50 million bond to house detention with digital monitoring.
“He isn’t an ideal individual. There has been drug use. He has been in poisonous relationships,” lawyer Marc Agnifilo informed the court docket. The lawyer stated Combs was receiving “treatment and therapy for things that he needs treatment and therapy for.”
Agnifilo had stated outdoors court docket earlier that Combs is harmless and got here to New York voluntarily to “engage the court system and start the case.”
The racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking indictment described Combs inducing feminine victims and male intercourse staff into drugged-up, typically dayslong sexual performances dubbed “Freak Offs.”
It additionally refers obliquely to an assault on his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, that was captured on video.
The 54-year-old founding father of Bad Boy Records is accused of placing, punching and dragging girls, throwing objects and kicking them — and getting his private assistants, safety and family employees to assist him cover all of it.
Prosecutors stated in court docket papers that they’d interviewed greater than 50 victims and witnesses and anticipate the quantity to develop. They stated they might use monetary, journey and billing data, digital information and communications and movies of the “Freak Offs” to show their case.
Combs was 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.
A conviction on each cost within the indictment would require a compulsory 15 years in jail with the potential of a life sentence.
The indictment describes Combs as the top of a legal enterprise that engaged or tried to interact in intercourse trafficking, pressured labor, interstate transportation for functions of prostitution, drug offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.
Combs and his associates wielded his “power and prestige” to intimidate and lure girls into his orbit, “often under the pretense of a romantic relationship,” the indictment says.
It says he then would use pressure, threats and coercion to get the ladies to interact with male intercourse staff within the “Freak Offs” — “elaborate and produced sex performances” that Combs organized, directed, masturbated throughout and infrequently recorded, creating dozens of movies.
He typically organized to fly the ladies in and ensured their participation by procuring and offering medicine, controlling their careers, leveraging his monetary assist and utilizing intimidation and violence, in accordance with the indictment.
The occasions might final for days, and Combs and victims would usually obtain IV fluids to get well from the exertion and drug use, the indictment stated.
It stated his staff facilitated “Freak Offs” by arranging journey, reserving resort rooms, stocking them with such provides as medicine and child oil, scheduling the supply of IV fluids and cleansing the rooms afterward.
During the searches of Combs’ houses earlier this yr, legislation enforcement seized narcotics, movies of the “Freak Offs” and greater than 1,000 bottles of child oil and lubricant, in accordance with prosecutors. They stated brokers additionally seized firearms and ammunition, together with three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers — two of them, damaged into elements, in his bed room closet in Miami.
The indictment portrays Combs as a violent man who choked and shoved individuals, hit and kicked victims and typically dragged them by their hair, inflicting accidents that always took days or perhaps weeks to heal. His staff and associates typically witnessed his violence and stored victims from leaving or tracked down those that tried, the indictment stated.
It alleges that Combs typically stored movies of victims participating in intercourse acts and used the recordings as “collateral” to make sure the ladies’s continued obedience and silence. He additionally exerted management over victims by promising profession alternatives, offering and threatening to withhold monetary assist, dictating how they regarded, monitoring their well being data and controlling the place they lived, in accordance with the indictment.
In a court docket submitting, prosecutors accused Combs and an unidentified co-conspirator of kidnapping somebody at gunpoint just a few days earlier than Christmas in 2011 in an effort to facilitate a break-in at one other individual’s house. Two weeks later, they wrote, Combs set fireplace to somebody’s car by slicing open its convertible high and dropping in a Molotov cocktail.
All of this, prosecutors allege, was taking place behind the facade of Combs’ international music, way of life and clothes enterprise.
“A yr in the past, Sean Combs stood in Times Square and was handed a key to New York City. Today, he’s been indicted and can face justice,” Manhattan-based U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated at a news convention Tuesday.
Combs returned the important thing in June after Mayor Eric Adams requested it again.
Combs was acknowledged as one of the vital influential figures in hip-hop earlier than a flood of allegations emerged over the previous yr.
As the specter of legal fees loomed, Combs and his associates pressured witnesses and victims to remain silent, providing bribes and supplying false narratives of what occurred, the indictment says.
In November, Cassie, whose authorized identify 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-fueled settings.
The go well with was settled in sooner or later, however months later, CNN aired resort safety footage displaying Combs punching and kicking Ventura and throwing her on a ground. After the video aired, Combs apologized, saying, “I was disgusted when I did it.”
The indictment refers back to the assault, with out naming Ventura, and says Combs tried to bribe a resort safety staffer to remain mum about it.
Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Ventura, declined to remark Tuesday.
Combs and his attorneys denied comparable allegations made by others in a string of lawsuits.
A girl 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. Another girl, April Lampros, stated Combs subjected her to “terrifying sexual encounters,” beginning when she was a university pupil in 1994.
The AP doesn’t sometimes identify individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused until they arrive ahead publicly, as Ventura and Lampros did.
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