A federal indictment towards American rapper, music producer and dressmaker Sean “Diddy” Combs has been unsealed, exhibiting the hip-hop artist is going through costs of intercourse trafficking and racketeering.
A New York choose refused to grant bail to the rapper on Tuesday and ordered him to be despatched to jail whereas he awaits trial.
The costs have been revealed a day after Combs was arrested in Manhattan following a six-month investigation by federal authorities.
Combs, carrying a black T-shirt and gray sweatpants, pleaded not responsible to the fees throughout an preliminary court docket look in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon. The choose is anticipated to resolve whether or not Combs ought to stay in custody pending trial.
The indictment stated the hip-hop mogul “engaged in a persistent and pervasive sample of abuse towards girls and different people”.
That included years of participating in threatening and coercive acts in direction of girls “to satisfy his sexual needs, shield his status, and conceal his conduct”, the indictment stated.
Probably the most excessive allegation was that the music star induced women and men to participate in drug-fuelled, days-long sexual performances often called “freak offs”. The indictment additionally particulars an assault on Combs’s former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie.
The legal 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 exterior a New York court docket earlier on Tuesday, Agnifilo promised to “struggle like hell” to get Combs launched.
‘Energy and status’
The indictment described the 54-year-old Combs because the chief of a wider legal enterprise.
That enterprise was alleged to be concerned in an array of crimes, together with intercourse trafficking, compelled 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” girls, “typically below the pretense of a romantic relationship”.
Combs is accused of utilizing threats, coercion and drive to get girls to take part in sexual performances, which he typically recorded.
In some cases, he allegedly flew girls 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 workers, in keeping with the indictment.
In a number of cases, Combs struck, punched and dragged girls on quite a few events as a part of the coercion, the indictment stated.
Guaranteeing silence
The indictment additional alleged that Combs would hold 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 america all through the 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 obtained 13 nominations.
However rumours of Combs’s abuses – allegedly dedicated behind the veil of his music, way of life 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 shortly 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 girl twenty years in the past when she was 17, amongst a sequence of different allegations.
Federal investigators in March searched Combs’s houses in Miami and Los Angeles, discovering greater than 1,000 bottles of child oil and lubricant, computerized firearms and ammunition.