Sean “Diddy” Combs has been indicted on three counts of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution as part of a sweeping federal probe.
The indictment unsealed Tuesday alleges that the music mogul for years ran a “criminal enterprise” that threatened and abused women and engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution, coercion and enticement to engage in prostitution, narcotics offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.
Combs was arrested Monday in New York. He pleaded not guilty to all charges in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday.
Prosecutors allege Combs’ empire centered on operating a global business in the media, entertainment and lifestyle industries for the purpose of carrying out these crimes.
“First, this office is determined to investigate and prosecute anyone who engages in sex trafficking, no matter how powerful or wealthy or famous you may be. No one should doubt our commitment to that,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said during a news conference Tuesday. “A year ago, Sean Combs stood in Times Square and received a key to New York City. Today, he has been indicted and will face justice in the Southern District of New York. Second, we are not done. This investigation is ongoing.”
Combs has strongly denied any wrongdoing, and on Monday his attorney criticized prosecutors.
“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Combs’ attorney Marc Agnifilo said in a statement. “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.”
Read more: Sean Combs abused women during ‘freak offs’ involving male prostitutes, drugs, violence, feds allege
The attorney said Combs was “an imperfect person but he is not a criminal. To his credit Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”
According to the indictment, Combs and his associates lured female victims often under the pretense of a romantic relationship. Combs then allegedly used force, threats of force, coercion and controlled substances to get women to engage in sex acts with male sex workers that Combs referred to as “freak offs.”
The “freak offs,” which prosecutors allege sometimes lasted for days, were elaborately produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often recorded, according to the indictment. Prosecutors allege in a detention memo filed in court that the “freak offs” occurred regularly from at least 2009 through this year and that the hotel rooms where they were staged often sustained significant damage.
“He used the embarrassing and sensitive recordings he made of the freak offs as collateral against the victims,” Williams said.
Williams said Combs gave the women ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to “keep them obedient and compliant” during the performances.
“When Combs didn’t get his way he was violent, and he subjected victims to physical, emotional and verbal abuse so that they would participate in the freak offs,” Williams said. “Combs hit, kicked, threw objects at and dragged victims at times by their hair.”
Combs would offer women career opportunities and pay their rent or for their cars to keep them financially reliant on him and ensure their participation in the “freak offs,” according to the memo.
Because of the threats of violence, concerns that their financial support would be withdrawn and that sensitive recordings would be circulated, “victims did not believe they could refuse Combs without risking their security or facing more abuse,” Williams said.
Combs has been the subject of a sweeping inquiry into sex trafficking allegations since at least the beginning of the year.
During searches of Combs’ homes in Miami and Los Angeles in March, authorities seized narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant that Combs staff would stock in hotel rooms for the “freak offs”, according to the indictment.
Read more: What to know about the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs arrest, lawsuits, raids
Agents also discovered a large-capacity drum magazine with 59 rounds in his Los Angeles home and three AR-15 rifles with the serial numbers defaced in the closet of his Miami home, according to court records.
The indictment includes no names apart from Combs’ but echoes allegations made by his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, that were contained in a lawsuit settled last year and several lawsuits by other women and a male producer.
Three days after Ventura filed her lawsuit, the detention memo states that Combs called another of his victims multiple times. During the calls, Combs repeatedly asked for the victim’s support and “friendship,” and attempted to convince the woman that she had willingly engaged in acts. Combs told her that if she “needed” him, she “ain’t got worry about nothing else,” the memo states.
Prosecutors allege this was a “thinly veiled attempt to coerce the victim into adopting and supporting the defendant’s false version of events” to protect himself.
The detention memo also alleges that Combs was violent toward his employees and others, including by throwing them to the ground, throwing objects at them, and choking, dragging and shoving them.
In one instance in December 2011, Combs and a co-conspirator allegedly kidnapped an individual at gunpoint to break into someone’s home. About two weeks later, the memo claims, Combs’ co-conspirators set fire to a car belonging to the person they kidnapped by slicing open its convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside.
Prosecutors did not name the person who had been kidnapped and whose car was destroyed. Combs has previously been accused in a lawsuit of blowing up rapper Kid Cudi’s vehicle.
Prosecutors allege in court records that Combs and his associates pressured women and in some cases attempted to bribe them to not report what they experienced.
Combs’ legal troubles have been building for months.
In civil lawsuits, four women have accused Combs of rape, assault and other abuses, dating back three decades. One of the allegations involved a minor. The claims sent shock waves through the music industry and put Combs’ entertainment empire in jeopardy.
Read more: Behind the calamitous fall of hip-hop mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
Last week, Dawn Richard, a former member of the singing groups Danity Kane and Diddy-Dirty Money and solo artist, sued Combs in New York, alleging sexual assault, harassment and inhumane treatment.
She alleged that Combs groped her without her consent, falsely imprisoned her and deprived her and her bandmates of basic needs, and that “submission to his depraved demands was necessary for career advancement.”
Richard’s attorney, Lisa Bloom, said in a statement to The Times after his arrest that “given Sean Combs’ brutal beating of his girlfriend caught on video and the eight people who have now accused him of abuse in court filings, including my brave client Dawn Richard, this arrest seems long overdue. It’s a big, moving day for victims, but an arrest is only the beginning. May justice be delivered to Mr. Combs. We implore other accusers to come forward in solidarity and join us in this fight.”
His former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, accused him of rape and repeated physical assaults and said he forced her to have sex with male prostitutes in front of him. Combs quickly settled a lawsuit Ventura brought against him last year. Months later, a 2016 video published by CNN showed Combs chasing, kicking and dragging Ventura at an L.A. hotel.
Prosecutors allege in the detention memo that Ventura was attempting to leave a “freak off” when Combs attacked her. When hotel security staffer intervened, Combs offered the man “a stack of cash to ensure his silence.” When the security guard refused the money, Combs’ staff contacted other members of the security team. Within days of the incident, the surveillance video disappeared from the hotel’s server, according to the memo.
Another accuser, Joi Dickerson-Neal, said in a lawsuit that Combs drugged and raped her in 1991, recording the attack and then distributing the footage without her consent.
Liza Gardner filed a third suit in which she alleged Combs and R&B singer Aaron Hall sexually assaulted her. Hall could not be reached for comment.
Another lawsuit alleges that Combs and former Bad Boy label President Harve Pierre gang-raped and sex-trafficked a 17-year-old girl. Pierre said in a statement that the allegations were “disgusting,” “false” and a “desperate attempt for financial gain.”
Read more: A timeline of allegations against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
After the filing of the fourth suit, Combs wrote on Instagram: “Enough is enough…. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
In the spring, producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones filed a federal lawsuit against Combs accusing him of sexually harassing and threatening him for more than a year.
Prosecutors argued in court documents that Combs should not be granted bail because he is a flight risk given his connections and estimated $1 billion net worth. If convicted, Combs faces at least 15 years in federal prison.
In a letter to the court, Combs’ legal team argued he has been cooperative and should be granted bail. Combs left his home in Miami and traveled to New York where he was being investigated and had offered to turn himself in. They say he’s also willing to put up his Miami estate as collateral, is in the process of selling his jet and that he and his family have surrendered their passports.
Combs is the latest high-profile figure in the music industry to face criminal charges related to sexual misconduct. In 2022, R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison for racketeering and sex trafficking. Racketeering charges are more commonly applied to mob bosses such as John Gotti and James “Whitey” Bulger.
“The playbook for these types of cases is R. Kelly, Jeffrey Epstein, Larry Ray and NXIVM’s founder Keith Raniere,” Elizabeth Geddes, who delivered a six-hour closing argument in Kelly’s trial, told The Times earlier this year.
In racketeering cases, the “enterprise” allegedly carries out illegal conduct and prosecutors seek to show a broader pattern of conduct that stretches over years and involves many participants. Racketeering became a federal crime in 1970 under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Times staff writers Alexandra Del Rosario and Scott Wilson contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
