Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing a series of new lawsuits filed in federal court on Monday.
The six-count indictment, first obtained by NBC News, was filed in the Southern District of New York on behalf of four men and two women, none of whom are named in the filing. The incidents alleged in the complaint span from 1995 to 2021 and include accusations of sexual assault and rape.
The accusers include a man who was 16 years old at the time of the incident and a woman who was a 19-year-old college student who claims Combs raped her in a Manhattan hotel room in 2004. All the alleged incidents occurred in 2004. New York City or the Hamptons, according to the lawsuit. Two of the lawsuits involve incidents that allegedly occurred at a lavish Labor Day “white party” at Combs’ Hamptons property.
The lawsuit was filed by Texas-based attorney Tony Buzbee, who announced at a press conference on October 1 that he is representing the accuser in the accusations against Combs. – Conducted under the Gender-Motivated Violence Victims Protection Act. Under the law, victims have two years until March 2025 to bring claims before then.
“We’re going to try to bring a case that we think is credible and just,” Buzbee said.
The lawsuit names Combs and his various businesses as defendants, and the accusers are seeking unspecified damages.
Combs’ attorney denied the allegations and wrongdoing.
“The press conference and 800-to-1 numbers that preceded today’s round of charges were clearly an attempt to raise publicity,” he said in a statement Monday night. Mr. Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defense, and the integrity of the judicial process. The truth will prevail in court: Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone, adult or minor, male or female. ”
NBC News has not independently corroborated the claims in the complaint.
“As you can see, there’s an important theme here, which is basically that Sean Combs feels he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants,” Buzbee says in his lawsuit. I said this in a previous interview.
Combs, through his lawyer, has denied all civil and criminal allegations, calling the charges against him “disgusting” and the result of people looking for a “quick payday.”
The oldest complaint, according to court documents, is from a woman who claims Combs assaulted and raped her in a bathroom while attending a music video release party in 1995. At least two of the lawsuits include allegations that the accusers’ drinks were laced with drugs, making it difficult for them to fight back against sexual assault charges.
One lawsuit alleges that in 1998, when he was 16 years old, he was sexually assaulted at one of Combs’ “white parties” in the Hamptons. In the lawsuit, he claims he spoke with Combs about his desire to break into the music industry, and that the interaction took a turn when Combs asked his accuser to reveal himself. He claims he did it out of fear and that Combs sexually assaulted him, according to the complaint.
One of the accusers alleges that Mr. Combs sexually assaulted her at a “white man’s party” in the Hamptons in 2006. A man who worked for a security company at the time said he alerted his supervisor after the incident, according to court documents.
In 2008, another lawsuit alleges that Mr. Combs physically and sexually assaulted an employee of a popular clothing brand at a Manhattan department store, according to the complaint. The man said he lost his job a short time after the incident and said he reported the incident to store security, according to the complaint.
The most recent allegation listed in one of the lawsuits was an incident that occurred in 2021. According to court documents, the accuser claims she became disoriented after having one drink at a party and was sexually assaulted by Combs and other unknown men.
The new filing comes as the embattled music mogul battles pretrial detention on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges. Although the specific allegations in the case are new, court documents reflect some of the details of a criminal complaint against him filed last month by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, alleging drug-fueled partying and violence. A disturbing combination of these has been revealed.
These latest lawsuits come after a New York judge set a May 5 trial date for Combs’ criminal case. He is currently awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Federal prosecutors said in a hearing last week that they were examining data from more than 90 devices seized at Combs’ property during a raid and arrest in New York this year.
Combs has been denied bail twice by two different judges and is seeking to have those decisions overturned. In a filing ahead of last week’s hearing, Combs’ lawyers applied for bail in a federal appeals court in New York.
Buzbee’s latest civil lawsuit comes since Combs’ ex-girlfriend, Cassandra “Kathy” Ventura, filed a federal lawsuit in New York about a year ago accusing Combs of years of physical and sexual abuse. , one of several lawsuits filed. Combs and Ventura settled the case the next day for an undisclosed amount. Combs denied all allegations in a statement at the time of the settlement.
But in May, CNN released surveillance footage of Combs beating Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. Combs has since apologized for the incident, but said it was a one-time thing and that he has changed after undergoing treatment.
Combs’ lawyers filed a petition last week alleging that the government was responsible for providing footage of the Ventura incident to CNN and leaking other information to the media.
“Between the grand jury leaks and inflammatory public statements, the agents all but ensured that not only the grand jury, but also the general public from which we would soon select jurors, would be tainted,” the filing states. is stated.
Combs’ defense team is seeking an evidentiary hearing in the case, but prosecutors deny the charges. The judge overseeing the case said at a hearing last week that he would likely impose a mutual gag order that would prevent both sides from engaging with the media.
In the months since Ventura’s lawsuit, several people, including Dawn Richard, a former member of the girl group Danity Kane, have accused Combs of molesting, assaulting, imprisoning and threatening her life. he claimed.
Correction (October 15, 2024, 3:25 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of an ex-girlfriend who filed a federal lawsuit in New York against Combs about a year ago. I was wrong. She is not Cassandra Venture, but Cassandra Ventura (aka Cassie).
