Diddy covered up abuse, sex trafficking including at Star Island mansion, indictment says
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Federal probe into music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs
Sean “Diddy” Combs was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges after his Star Island mansion was raided.
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For decades, hip-hop mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs boasted building a multimillion-dollar business empire — but federal prosecutors say that he ran it as a “criminal enterprise” that engaged in and covered up sex trafficking, forced labor and bribery, including at his Star Island mansion, according to a newly filed indictment.
The indictment, which was unsealed on Tuesday, charges Diddy, 54, with running a “racketeering conspiracy” by having “engaged in a persistent and pervasive pattern of abuse toward women and other individuals.”
He pleaded not guilty Tuesday.
READ MORE: Months after dramatic raid, Diddy indicted in connection to sex trafficking probe
“As part of this pattern of abuse, Diddy manipulated women to participate in highly orchestrated performances of sexual activity with male commercial sex workers,” the indictment says. “At times, Combs, and others acting at his direction, made arrangements for women and commercial sex workers to fly to Combs’ location.”
Allegations at Diddy’s Star Island mansion
Much of that activity occurred at Diddy’s posh homes in New York, Los Angeles and on Miami Beach’s Star Island, where he owns two mansions, according to property and court records and federal investigators.
Six months ago, federal agents raided Diddy’s 2 Star Island Drive home in the wake of a lawsuit that claimed he was the leader of a criminal enterprise that could qualify as a “widespread and dangerous criminal sex trafficking organization.”
READ MORE: Yung Miami, drugs and a shooting: New details emerge in amended lawsuit against Diddy
The embattled music mogul is charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution, according to the grand jury indictment.
Miami Beach mansion’s equity for bond?
Prosecutors have said they were seeking to keep Diddy in federal detention as he awaits his trial. Diddy offered to post a $50-million bond and to wear a GPS monitor, limiting his travel to New York and Miami.
The bond would be secured with the equity in his 2 Star Island Drive home, which is valued at $48 million, according to his defense attorney.
His lawyer noted in a court filing that Diddy recently left Miami for New York knowing he was going to be charged and that he was willing to surrender to authorities. Instead, they arrested him in New York on Monday evening.
On Tuesday afternoon, a judge in New York denied Diddy’s bond request.
“Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts,” defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said in a statement. “These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”‘
‘Abused, threatened’ women: Indictment
The 14-page indictment, filed by Manhattan federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, details how the music executive since 2008 “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct.”
In addition to the main conspiracy charge, Diddy is charged with sex trafficking involving a person identified as “Victim-1.”
Diddy, prosecutors say, manipulated women to have sex with male sex workers by controlling their careers, leveraging his financial support and threatening them with violence.
The indictment specifically refers to disturbing surveillance video that captured Diddy kicking his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura down a hallway at a Los Angeles hotel in March 2016.
The rap mogul used his business ventures to enrich people who were loyal to him and used them to conceal his crimes, according to the indictment. His staff weaponized Diddy’s power and prestige to “intimidate, threaten, and lure female victims into [Diddy’s] orbit, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship.”
‘Freak off’ supplies found at Star Island mansion: Feds
The recruited women were forced to participate in “freak offs,” sexual performances that Diddy directed and often recorded, the indictment states. Diddy’s employees would arrange his access to women and sex workers, often across state lines, and provided controlled substances to keep the women “obedient and compliant.”
Diddy — and his employees — even tracked down victims, confronting them with recordings of the “freak offs” to pressure them into silence, according to the indictment.
READ MORE: Feds’ raid on Diddy’s Miami Beach mansion goes into the night in sex trafficking probe
During the raid of Diddy’s Star Island and Los Angeles homes, agents seized “freak off” supplies, including narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant.
They also uncovered three AR-15s with scratched-off serial numbers as well as a drum magazine.
In 2023, after allegations against Diddy gained traction due to mounting lawsuits, the music executive and his staff attempted to bribe people to stay silent, the indictment states. He even spun them false narratives during phone calls.
Those calls, on at least two occasions, were recorded, prosecutors say.
A case built on lawsuits?
Diddy’s legal woes culminated in April when music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones sued Diddy, accusing him, his staff and other music executives of knowing about illicit and unwanted sexual advances alleged to have taken place in Miami, New York, California and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The producer, whom Diddy hired in August 2022 to help craft several songs on his R&B album “The Love Album: Off the Grid,” claims in the lawsuit that Diddy groped him and forced him to engage in sex acts with sex workers.
Jones also claims that he was ordered to recruit those sex workers from Booby Trap on the River, a Miami strip club, and bring them back to Diddy’s Star Island home.
Diddy’s ex-girlfriend Ventura was the catalyst to a deluge of lawsuits that have trailed Diddy in recent months. In her suit, Ventura alleged that Diddy raped her and made her have sex with male sex workers throughout their decade-long relationship.
Diddy settled that lawsuit the day after it was filed.
This story was originally published September 17, 2024 at 11:48 AM.
