Federal prosecutors lob additional counts against Sean 'Diddy' Combs in sex trafficking case

Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing further counts related to enactment trafficking, according to a superseding indictment filed this week.

Combs was deed with a three-count indictment successful September that accused him of racketeering, enactment trafficking and proscription to prosecute successful prostitution.

On Thursday, national prosecutors successful New York tacked connected 2 further counts to their indictment: different number of enactment trafficking and different number of proscription to prosecute successful prostitution. Prosecutors allege the crimes occurred betwixt 2021 and 2024.

The 3rd superseding indictment against Combs comes arsenic the national proceedings moves person to a tribunal date, with assemblage enactment slated to statesman May 5 successful a New York courtroom.

Combs pleaded not blameworthy to the erstwhile indictment and volition beryllium arraigned connected the caller counts April 25.

On Friday, his lawyers issued a statement, “These are not caller accusers, these are the aforesaid individuals, erstwhile semipermanent girlfriends, progressive successful consensual relationships. This was their backstage enactment life.”

Combs, who is being held successful a national correctional installation successful Brooklyn, N.Y., is accused of abusing 3 women and being the mastermind of a transgression conspiracy from 2004 to 2024.

Combs, the laminitis of Bad Boy Entertainment, is accused of utilizing his concern empire to coerce victims into days-long enactment gatherings known arsenic “freak-offs.”

The indictment alleges Combs and his associates transported enactment workers crossed authorities lines for the encounters, which were allegedly recorded astatine times.

Some of the victims, the indictment alleges, were fixed IV fluids to recover.

In tribunal documents, prosecutors allege the 55-year-old mogul utilized drugs, unit and coercion to unit women to enactment successful the freak-offs. Prosecutors allege Combs’ ellipse of employees and confidants helped signifier and cleanable up the events, and to support them concealed from the nationalist and instrumentality enforcement.

Combs’ adjacent ellipse was allegedly progressive successful hiring enactment workers, transporting them to the events, and supplying edifice rooms during the gatherings with items specified arsenic currency and babe oil.

Prosecutors person not ruled retired charging others tied to their investigation.

“Combs did not bash this each connected his own,” Damian Williams, the U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of New York, said successful announcing the charges past year. “He utilized his concern and employees of that concern and different adjacent associates to get his way.”

Marc Agnifilo, an lawyer for Combs, has dismissed the allegations arsenic “ridiculous” and countered that national prosecutors were alleging Combs’ “former girlfriends were not girlfriends astatine each but were prostitutes.”

The indictment alleges that Combs “used force, threats of force, and coercion to origin victims, including but not constricted to 3 pistillate victims,” to prosecute successful commercialized enactment acts.

An archetypal expansive assemblage indictment against Combs listed a “Victim-1,” whose allegations mirrored those of Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, a vocalist and erstwhile woman of Combs who sued him successful 2023. Combs settled that lawsuit. The expanded indictment refers to “Victim-2” and “Victim-3” but does not uncover their identities.

The indictment besides refers to a 2016 incidental successful which Combs is accused of dangling a pistillate disconnected a balcony. That allegation resembles 1 made past twelvemonth successful a suit by Bryana Bongolan. The suits accidental Bongolan was successful Ventura’s flat dormant erstwhile Combs arrived and banged connected the door. Once inside, the suit claims, helium grabbed her and held her implicit a banister.

Combs is besides facing respective lawsuits from alleged victims who impeach him of intersexual maltreatment erstwhile they were minors. The national charges against Combs marque nary notation of minors successful the indictment, and Combs, done his attorneys, has denied the allegations.