By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has been hit with three federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, according to an indictment unsealed on Tuesday.
The indictment was unsealed after Combs, 54, was arrested in Manhattan by federal agents on Monday night, following a year in which his career was derailed by several lawsuits accusing him of physical and sexual abuse.
According to the 14-page indictment, Combs turned his business empire into a criminal enterprise in which he and his associates engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor and other crimes.
The indictment said Combs threatened and coerced women to “fulfill his sexual desires,” and on numerous occasions starting around 2009 assaulted women by “striking, punching, dragging, throwing objects at, and kicking them.”
According to prosecutors, Combs gave women drugs and financial support in exchange for their participation in sexual activity with male sex workers in “highly orchestrated performances.”
Prosecutors also said that in one videotaped and publicly reported incident in March 2016, Combs attempted to bribe a hotel security staff member who intervened when he threw a vase at a woman who was attempting to leave.
Combs is expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday.
His lawyer Marc Agnifilo did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the indictment was made public.
Agnifilo said on Monday night he was disappointed with the decision to pursue an “unjust prosecution” of the rapper and producer.
“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community,” Agnifilo said. “He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal.”
Agnifilo added that Combs voluntarily relocated to New York in anticipation of the charges.
Combs, who has also been known as P. Diddy and Puff Daddy, was a major figure in hip-hop in the 1990s and 2000s. He founded the label Bad Boy records, and is credited with helping turn rappers and R&B singers such as Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans, Notorious B.I.G. and Usher into stars.
His reputation came under fire last November when former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, an R&B singer known as Cassie, accused him in a lawsuit of serial physical abuse, sexual slavery and rape during their decade-long relationship. She agreed to an undisclosed settlement one day after suing, even as Combs denied her allegations.
LAWSUITS MOUNT
His legal pressures mounted, and he has faced several civil lawsuits by women and men who accused him of sexual assault and other misconduct. His lawyers have been fighting those cases in court. Federal agents raided his homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach, Florida six months ago.
Singer Dawn Richard, formerly of Danity Kane, last week accused Combs in a lawsuit of sexual assault, battery, sex trafficking, gender discrimination and fraud.
A Michigan judge this month ordered Combs to pay $100 million to Derrick Lee Smith, who said Combs drugged and sexually assaulted him at a party almost 30 years ago, after Combs failed to show up to defend himself in court. A lawyer for Combs said he would seek to dismiss that judgment.
Combs has also rejected claims in a February sex trafficking lawsuit by Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, who Combs employed as a producer on his 2023 release “The Love Album: Off the Grid.”
The indictment is not Combs’ first brush with the law. He was acquitted in March 2001 of bribery and weapons charges in a criminal trial stemming from a nightclub shooting that left three people wounded.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Will Dunham)
