Superstar rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to racketeering and sex trafficking charges, and was ordered to remain in custody pending a trial.
Combs, 54, was arrested by US federal agents in New York on Monday evening and accused in a just-unsealed three-count criminal indictment alleging he sexually abused women and coerced them into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence.
Appearing in a Manhattan courtroom where many family members came to support him, the one-time music dignitary pleaded not guilty. His lawyer asked US Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky to allow his release on bail.
Photo: Reuters
After a lengthy bail hearing in which the prosecution voiced concerns including the potential for witness tampering and flight risk, Judge Tarnofsky denied bail, saying she was concerned about a “power imbalance” in the case that includes people she said are “subject to coercion.”
She also cited concerns over his alleged propensity for anger, violence and substance abuse.
Combs, who was wearing a black T-shirt, grey sweatpants and sneakers, did not noticeably react to the pretrial detention ruling, which his attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said would be appealed.
Along with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, Combs is charged with one count of transporting victims across state lines to engage in prostitution.
US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said that although Combs is the only person indicted for now, the investigation is ongoing.
The indictment alleges that for decades Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct.”
It accused him of running a criminal enterprise that carried out “sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.”
Combs allegedly engaged in a “persistent and pervasive pattern” of verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of women, the indictment said.
“On numerous occasions from at least in or about 2009 and continuing for years, Combs assaulted women by, among other things, striking, punching, dragging, throwing objects at, and kicking them,” it said.
Williams said female victims were forced to engage in extended sexual performances with male commercial sex workers in sessions called “Freak Offs,” which were planned and controlled by Combs and often videotaped.
“The Freak Offs sometimes lasted days at a time... And often involved a variety of narcotics such as ketamine, ecstasy and GHB,” he said. “The indictment alleges that Combs threatened and coerced victims to get them to participate in the Freak Offs.”
The powerful music industry figure, who has gone by various monikers including Puff Daddy and P Diddy, was credited as key to hip hop’s journey from the streets to luxury clubs.
Despite his efforts to cultivate the image of a smooth party kingpin and business magnate, a spate of lawsuits describe Combs as a violent man who used his celebrity to prey on women.
The floodgates opened last year after singer Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, alleged Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs as well as a 2018 rape.
The pair met when Ventura was 19 and Combs was 37, after which he signed her to his label, and they began a relationship.
The suit was settled out of court, but a string of similarly lurid sexual assault claims followed — including one in December last year by a woman who alleged Combs and others gang-raped her when she was 17.
The rapper’s luxury homes in Miami and Los Angeles were raided by agents in March.
A disturbing surveillance video emerged in May showing Combs physically assaulting his then-girlfriend Ventura, corroborating allegations she made in the now-settled case.
The prosecution referenced the footage’s content during the bail hearing, suggesting it is a key element of their case.
Born Sean John Combs on Nov. 4, 1969, in Harlem, the artist entered the industry as an intern in 1990 at Uptown Records, where he eventually became a talent director.
In 1991, he promoted a celebrity basketball game and concert at the City College of New York that left nine people dead after a stampede and resulted in a string of lawsuits.
He was fired from Uptown and founded his own label, Bad Boy Records.
That began a quick ascent to the top of East Coast hip hop, along with his late disciple, The Notorious B.I.G.
Combs boasted several major signed acts and production collaborations with the likes of Mary J Blige, Usher, Lil’ Kim, TLC, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men.
He was also a Grammy-winning rapper in his own right, debuting with the chart-topping single Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down and his album No Way Out.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
RSS