Hip-hop mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has pleaded not responsible to intercourse trafficking and different prices in a New York federal court docket on Tuesday.
He has been accused of working a prison enterprise that relied on medication and violence to pressure ladies to “fulfill his sexual wishes”, based on prosecutors.
Mr Combs appeared in court docket after his arrest on Monday night in New York. A choose ordered him detained till his trial begins, siding with prosecutors who argued Mr Combs represented a “severe flight threat”.
A 14-page indictment, launched on Tuesday morning, had charged Mr Combs with racketeering, intercourse trafficking by pressure, and transportation to interact in prostitution.
Mr Combs’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, says the defence workforce have already launched an enchantment of the choose’s determination, with a listening to set for Wednesday.
“We consider in him wholeheartedly. He did not do these items. There isn’t any coercion and no crime,” Mr Agnifilo informed reporters on the courthouse. “He is not afraid of the costs.”
Mr Agnifilo stated Mr Combs is the goal of “an unjust prosecution”.
In court docket paperwork, federal prosecutors stated that Mr Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced ladies and others round him to meet his sexual wishes, shield his fame, and conceal his conduct”.
Prosecutors accused Mr Combs of “making a prison enterprise” whose members – beneath his course – engaged in intercourse trafficking, compelled labor, kidnapping, arson and bribery.
“On quite a few occassions”, the paperwork stated, Mr Combs assaulted ladies by “hanging, punching, dragging, throwing objects at, and kicking them”.
Mr Combs has confronted lots of the accusations earlier than.
In late December, Mr Combs’s then-girlfriend, singer Casandra Elizabeth Ventura, filed a civil lawsuit in opposition to Combs that included graphic descriptions of violent abuse. He denied the accusations and settled the case a day after go well with was filed.
Nonetheless, in Could, Combs launched a public apology after video footage from a Los Angeles resort appeared to point out him beating Ms Ventura within the hallway.
The latest indictment in opposition to Mr Combs accuses him of comparable violence with further particulars about his intimate behaviours and relationships.
Ms Ventura’s lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, declined to touch upon Mr Combs’s arrest.
In response to court docket paperwork, Mr Combs “wielded the ability” of his standing to “lure feminine victims… to interact in prolonged intercourse acts” known as “Freak Offs”.
“Throughout Freak Offs, Combs distributed quite a lot of managed substances to victims, partly to maintain the victims obedient and compliant,” the indictment stated.
In a press briefing after the indictment was unsealed, US prosecutor Damian Williams stated officers discovered firearms, ammunition and greater than 1,000 bottles of lubricant throughout raids on Mr Combs’s houses in Miami and Los Angeles roughly six months in the past.
Mr Williams stated federal brokers additionally discovered three semi-automatic rifles with defaced serial numbers, and a drum journal.
Mr Williams informed reporters that additional prices weren’t off the desk, however he didn’t provide particular particulars.
The costs comply with a string of sexual assault allegations in opposition to Mr Combs, one of the profitable music moguls within the historical past of rap.
4 ladies, together with Ms Ventura, have filed lawsuits accusing him of sexual and bodily abuse.
In a press release issued final December, Mr Combs defended himself in opposition to what he described as “sickening allegations” made by “people in search of a fast payday”.
His fame has taken a success, nevertheless.
In June, Mr Combs returned a ceremonial “Key to the Metropolis of New York”, given to him by Mayor Eric Adams simply 9 months prior.
Days later, Howard College introduced it was revoking Mr Combs’s 2014 honorary diploma.