Musician and businessman Sean Combs, 54, has been formally charged by a judge with sex trafficking, conspiracy and transportation for the purpose of prostitution. Following his arrest on Monday night in New York, the charges against him were made public on Tuesday by a grand jury that had been secretly trying him for the past few days. Combs, known artistically as Puff Daddy or Diddy, has faced a total of at least 10 lawsuits over the past 10 months for sexual accusations and rapes by eight women and two men.
The 14-page indictment devotes more than 10 pages to explaining the case and the crime of criminal association, just one page to fraud and half to the crime of transportation for prostitution; the rest are the conclusions. From the first paragraph it is very clear: “For decades the defendant abused, threatened and coerced women and other people around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and hide his conduct. To do so, Combs relied on employees, sources and the influence of his empire of different faces, which he directed and controlled, creating a criminal enterprise in which its members and partners engaged, or tried to engage, among other crimes, in sexual trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, robbery and obstruction of justice.”
Combs is expected to appear in Manhattan court on Tuesday, where he must appear to read the charges and plead guilty or not guilty. His lawyers have already announced that “he will plead not guilty, of course.” In fact, they say that “he will fight with all his energy” and that they expect “a long battle with good results” for their client.
The investigation against Combs has been active since at least March, when federal police went to his homes in Los Angeles and Miami and even took some of his property. However, it was not known that there was a grand jury trial, since grand juries are kept secret until the conclusions are reached.
The allegations against Combs began 10 months ago, on November 16, 2023, when his ex-girlfriend, model Casandra Ventura, known as Cassie, with whom he dated for years, filed a complaint against him. In her harsh lawsuit, she recounted how Combs raped her, subjected her to constant beatings (as seen in an explicit CNN video months later), drugged her, forced her to participate in orgies and various sexual encounters, and alienated her from her family and friends. Although Ventura withdrew the lawsuit just a day after filing it, many other plaintiffs followed suit.
That same month, November, two women filed lawsuits: Joi Dickerson-Neal, who accused Combs of raping and recording her in 1991, when she was 19; and Liza Gardner, who claimed that he assaulted her and another friend in 1990. In December, a fourth anonymous woman filed a complaint, in what has been one of the key lawsuits in the entire process: she alleged that she was sexually trafficked and flown from Detroit to the musician’s studio in New York to rape her when she was also a minor. In February, a producer Combs regularly worked with named Rodney Jones Jr. accused him of non-consensual touching. In May, two more came: one from a model named Crystal McKinney, who said that in 2003 he forced her to perform oral sex after drugging her in his studio; and another woman, April Lampros, who described how he assaulted her when she was studying fashion in New York while making promises of a better future. In July, Adria English, who worked at a party in the Hamptons in 2004, accused him of sex trafficking, forcing her to drink alcohol and take drugs and offering her to friends for “sexual exchanges.”
The ninth lawsuit was the only one that had a verdict so far. It took place in June but was not known until September. In it, a man in a Michigan jail, Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, 51, accuses him of sexual abuse at a party in 1997. Since Combs did not appear at the hearing for the case, the judge imposed an exemplary fine of 100 million dollars. The last and tenth complaint so far is from just a few days ago and comes from a singer named Dawn Richard, vocalist of Danity Kane, who accuses the rapper of sexual abuse and threats.
(Breaking news. Update coming soon.)
