A federal indictment towards American rapper, music producer and clothier Sean “Diddy” Combs has been unsealed, exhibiting the hip-hop artist is going through fees of intercourse trafficking and racketeering.
The costs have been revealed on Tuesday, a day after Combs was arrested in Manhattan following a six-month investigation by federal authorities. The indictment stated Combs “engaged in a persistent and pervasive sample of abuse towards ladies and different people”.
That included years of partaking in threatening and coercive acts in the direction of ladies “to meet his sexual wishes, shield his popularity, and conceal his conduct”, the indictment stated.
Essentially the most excessive allegation was that the music star induced women and men to participate in drug-fuelled, days-long sexual performances often known as “freak offs”. The indictment additionally particulars an assault on Combs’s former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie.
The felony indictment was handed down after a number of lawsuits have been filed accusing Combs of a sample of bodily and sexual abuse that continued for years. His lawyer Marc Agnifilo has broadly denied these claims.
Talking outdoors a New York court docket on Tuesday, Agnifilo stated Combs would plead not responsible to the federal fees.
He promised to “combat like hell” to get Combs launched.
‘Energy and status’
The indictment described the 54-year-old Combs because the chief of a wider felony enterprise. That enterprise was alleged to be concerned in an array of crimes, together with intercourse trafficking, pressured labour, drug offences, kidnapping, arson, bribery, obstruction of justice and interstate transportation for functions of prostitution.
Racketeering is outlined as an effort by a gaggle of individuals to scheme to repeatedly make a revenue via malfeasance.
Combs and his associates, the indictment stated, used their “energy and status” to “intimidate, threaten, and lure” ladies, “usually beneath the pretense of a romantic relationship”.
Combs is accused of utilizing threats, coercion and drive to get ladies to take part in sexual performances, which he usually recorded. In some cases, he allegedly flew ladies in to participate in them and used medication, affect over their careers and monetary leverage to guarantee their participation within the acts, which have been extremely organised and overseen by his staff, based on the indictment.
In a number of cases, Combs struck, punched and dragged ladies on quite a few events as a part of the coercion, the indictment stated.
Making certain silence
The indictment additional alleged that Combs would maintain recordings of the intercourse performances as “collateral” to make sure obedience and silence.
He and his associates are accused of pressuring victims to not take part within the federal investigation, together with via bribery.
The New York-born Combs was some of the influential hip-hop artists in the USA all through the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s. He had been credited with launching the careers of the Infamous BIG, Mary J Blige and Usher. He has received three Grammy Awards and acquired 13 nominations.
However rumours of Combs’s abuses – allegedly dedicated behind the veil of his music, life-style and clothes empire – got here to a head in November when Cassie, whose authorized title is Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit alleging he had for years abused, raped and coerced her into collaborating in undesirable sexual conditions.
Whereas the go well with was rapidly settled, a video of Combs punching and kicking Ventura quickly emerged. On the time, Combs apologised for the conduct.
He has additionally been accused of raping a lady twenty years in the past when she was 17, amongst a sequence of different allegations.
Federal investigators in March searched Combs’s properties in Miami and Los Angeles, discovering greater than 1,000 bottles of child oil and lubricant, computerized firearms and ammunition.
