Federal authorities are charging Sean “Diddy” Combs with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, according to the unsealed indictment against him released Tuesday.
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The details of Combs’ arrest indictment have been revealed after the music mogul, who was the subject of a sex trafficking investigation and a pair of federal raids, was arrested in Manhattan, New York, on Monday. The producer was taken into custody “based on a sealed indictment” filed by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, SDNY announced on social media, noting it would have “more to say” after the indictment was unsealed Tuesday morning.
According to the 14-page indictment filed by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Combs turned his “multi-faceted business empire” into a “criminal enterprise” in which he and his associates engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor and other crimes.
Combs threatened and coerced women to “fulfill his sexual desires,” the indictment said.
The district attorney’s office is holding a press conference on the federal indictment at 11:30 a.m. EST.
Combs’ attorney, Marc Agnifilo, told USA TODAY in a statement Monday that the rapper has been “nothing but cooperative” in the investigation and “voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges.”
“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Agnifilo said. “Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community. He is an imperfect person but he is not a criminal.”
Combs’ arrest follows a spate of legal woes for the Bad Boy Records founder. He is facing multiple lawsuits filed in recent months claiming the music magnate raped or sexually assaulted several alleged victims over the past few decades. Combs has denied all accusations against him.
According to the indictment, federal prosecutors allege Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others” to “fulfill his sexual desires” in a “recurrent and widely known” pattern of abuse. Combs’ abuse, they claim, ranged from the emotional and verbal to physical and sexual.
His “criminal enterprise” included sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution, coercion and enticement to engage in prostitution, kidnapping, bribery, narcotics offenses and arson, among other crimes, prosecutors allege.
He “manipulated women to participate in highly orchestrated performances of sexual activity with male commercial sex workers.” To ensure their participation, Combs would distribute drugs, control their careers or leverage his money, “threatening to cut off (financial support), and using intimidation and violence.”
Women were lured into this lifestyle “under the pretense of a romantic relationship,” according to the indictment.
Prosecutors allege the abuse occurred from at least 2009, in which Combs punched, struck, dragged and kicked various women. The indictment also alleges the abuse extended to his employees and witnesses to this abuse. Employees — including security, household staff and assistants — were also used to “cover up his abuse and commercial sex” operation, the indictment says.
Police seized more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil, other ‘freak off’ supplies: Diddy ‘freak off’ party meaning
The indictment refers to Combs’ alleged “freak off” parties, or “elaborate and produced sex performances” that were recorded without many victims’ consent.
Combs “arranged, directed” and “masturbated during” these sometimes dayslong “performances” involving sex workers, with him and his employees distributing drugs to victims, partly to keep them “obedient and compliant.”
In addition to drugs, Combs and his employees also conducted freak offs by booking hotel rooms and stocking them with supplies, including baby oil, lube, extra bedsheets and lighting, according to the indictment. In the raids of Combs’ homes in March, Los Angeles and Miami law enforcement seized “more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant.”
Diddy’s wave of legal trouble was spurred by a bombshell lawsuit filed by ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in November. The R&B singer accused the mogul of rape, sex trafficking and physical abuse, with both settling the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount the following day.
At the time, Diddy admitted to no wrongdoing, but months later, after CNN released video of the rapper striking and dragging the “Me & U” singer in 2016, he later apologized in a May Instagram video and said he makes “no excuses” for his behavior.
Other high-profile lawsuits include one filed by “The Love Album: Off the Grid” producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones Jr. in February, accusing Diddy and his associates of participating in “a sex-trafficking venture.”
In June, Michigan inmate Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith filed a civil lawsuit for an alleged 1997 sexual assault. This month, the convict was granted $100 million in default judgment after Combs failed to respond or appear in court. In response, Combs filed a pair of emergency motions on Sept. 12 to dismiss the multimillion-dollar judgment.
And earlier this month, Dawn Richard, formerly of the Bad Boy Records girl group Danity Kane and trio Diddy Dirty Money, sued Combs on 21 counts of sexual assault and battery, sex trafficking, gender discrimination and copyright infringement.
Other recent lawsuits have come from former model Crystal McKinney, an unnamed 17-year-old girl, then-fashion student April Lampros and then-college student Joi Dickerson-Neal, who have accused the producer of rape or sexual assault during incidents in the early 1990s to early 2000s.
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