NEW YORK — For 10 months, the case was surrounded by rumors, lawsuits, police raids and mounting allegations of widespread sexual abuse. Sean “Diddy CombsThe business empire, cultural status and avuncular image he had built over the decades since he became a handsome young hip-hop mogul in the 1990s began to crumble.
On Tuesday, those ripples became a wave with the revelation of a massive indictment detailing years of sex trafficking and conspiracyto which he pleaded not guilty before a federal magistrate ordered him jailed without bail pending trial.
The indictment accuses Combs of presiding over a sordid empire of sex crimes that exploited his “power and prestige” for “sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution, drug offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.”
It details how female victims and male sex workers were induced to engage in drug-fueled, elaborately produced sexual performances dubbed “Freak Offs.” Combs organized, directed, masturbated and often recorded them. The events sometimes lasted for days and required IVs to recover from, the indictment says. Combs used his workers as if they were a film crew.
It claims he coerced and abused women years of blackmail, including through videos he made, and shocking acts of violence to keep his victims in line. All of this was coordinated and facilitated from above by a network of associates and acquaintances.
Combs’ attorney Marc Agnifilo declared his client’s innocence and said they would appeal the bail decision, with a hearing expected Wednesday afternoon. Combs, 54, was led from the courthouse without handcuffs and turned to his family as he left.
“Sean Combs has never dodged, avoided, evaded or run from a challenge in his life,” the defense said in a court filing. “He will not start now.”
Despite all the revelations that came out on Tuesday, most of the actions described herein were already detailed in the original lawsuit filed in November by his former girlfriend and protégé, the R&B-singer Cassiewhose legal name is Cassandra Ventura. The lawsuit was settled the next day, but the allegations would far from go away.
The descriptions of abuse, sexual assaults, silencing of women and “freak offs” were repeated throughout the indictment, although her name or the names of other women were not mentioned.
Agnifilo, who also did not name Ventura but clearly referred to her, argued during Tuesday’s arraignment that the entire criminal case is the result of a long-term, difficult but consensual relationship that ended in infidelity.
The “Freak Offs,” Agnifilo claimed, were an extension of that relationship, not coercive.
“Is it sex trafficking?” Agnifilo asked. “Not if everyone wants to be there.”
Prosecutors, however, portrayed the scale as much larger, saying in court documents that they have interviewed more than 50 victims and witnesses and expect the number to grow.
Like many older hip-hop figures — including many of those he feuded with in the bi-coastal rap feuds of the 1990s alongside the Notorious B.I.G. — Bad Boy Records founder Combs had cultivated a gentler, more worldly image, as a devoted father of seven and a respected international businessman whose annual “White Party” in the Hamptons was once an unmissable invitation for the jet-set elite.
But prosecutors said he used the same companies, people and methods he used to build his business and cultural power to facilitate his crimes. They said they would use financial, travel and billing records, electronic records and communications, and videos from the “Freak Offs” to prove their case.
Both Ventura’s lawsuit and a complaint prosecutors filed in court Tuesday allege that Combs set someone’s car on fire by cutting the hood and throwing a Molotov cocktail into it. They also describe him beating, dragging and kicking Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016.
In May, CNN aired a security video showing the assault. Combs quickly apologizedand said, “I was disgusted when I did it.” But it would be a major turning point in public perception. He returned a key to the city at the request of New York Mayor Eric Adams, and Howard University severed ties with him.
“A year ago, Sean Combs stood in Times Square and was handed a key to New York City,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a news conference Tuesday. “Today, he has been charged and will appear in court.”
Normally, the AP does not name people who say they were sexually abused unless they report it publicly, as Ventura did.
Combs were arrested late monday evening in a Manhattan hotel, about six months after federal authorities his luxurious homes have been robbed in Los Angeles and Miami and revealed they were conducting a sex trafficking investigation.
During the searches, police seized narcotics, videos of the “Freak Offs” and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, prosecutors said. They said officers also seized firearms and ammunition, including three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers.
The indictment portrays Combs as so violent that he caused injuries that often took days or weeks to heal. His employees and coworkers sometimes witnessed his violence and stopped victims from leaving or tracked down those who tried, the indictment said.
A conviction on all charges in the indictment would carry a mandatory 15-year prison sentence, with the possibility of life in prison.
Combs and his attorneys denied similar allegations made by others in a series of lawsuits filed after Ventura’s case.
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Dalton reported from Los Angeles.