Sean 'Diddy' Combs indicted on federal sex trafficking charges

MANHATTAN (CN) — Federal prosecutors unsealed criminal charges on Tuesday morning accusing rap producer and entertainment mogul Sean Combs of carrying out a sprawling sex trafficking conspiracy involving physical abuse, drug-fueled sexual exploitation and surreptitious video recording.

The three-count indictment charges Combs on criminal counts: racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

“Members and associates of the Combs Enterprise engaged in, and attempted to engage in, among other activities, sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for the purposes of prostitution, coercion and enticement to engage in prostitution, narcotics offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice,” prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York wrote in the 14-page indictment.

Combs is accused of deploying his employees “to carry out, facilitate, and cover up his abuse and commercial sex.”

“Those employees-including security staff, household staff, personal assistants, and high-ranking supervisors-and other close associates acted as Combs’ intermediaries, and their conduct was facilitated and assisted by Combs’ control of the Combs Business,” the prosecutors wrote.

Combs, also known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, was arrested in a Manhattan hotel lobby on Monday night, six months after federal investigators searched his luxury homes in Los Angeles and Miami.

The Bad Boy Records founder wore a loose-fitting black T-shirt and gray sweatpants with black stripes down the leg during his first courtroom appearance in the case Tuesday afternoon. He spoke just two words in court, standing to enter his plea of “not guilty” before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky.

Tarnofsky refused to release him on bail pending trial. “I don’t know that you can trust yourself," she said at the conclusion of a two-hour detention hearing on Tuesday afternoon. “I don’t think that counsel has the ability to control you based on substance abuse and what seems like anger issues.”

Prosecutors requested in a detention memo that Combs be denied release on bail because he has “repeatedly engaged in obstructive conduct, and presents a serious risk of flight.”

“During the course of the charged conduct, the defendant has attempted to bribe security staff and threatened and interfered with witnesses to his criminal conduct,” prosecutors wrote in the memo. “He has already tried to obstruct the government’s investigation of this case, repeatedly contacting victims and witnesses and feeding them false narratives of events.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told the magistrate judge that Combs has “physically and sexually abused victims for decades.”

“Simply put, he is a serial abuser and a serial obstructor,” she said, pointing a 2016 episode at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles where Combs was captured on surveillance video violently assaulting his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a hallway, and attempted to bribe hotel security to coverup the attack.

Johnson was joined at the prosecution desk on Tuesday by four other women assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Combs was represented by defense attorney Marc Agnifilo of the Agnifilo Law Group in New York, who also handled the defense for NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere’s sex trafficking trial in Brooklyn federal court.

Agnifilo countered that the hotel video footage, first aired by CNN, was evidence of a domestic spat in a “mutually toxic relationship,” rather than proof of a sex trafficking conspiracy.

“It’s evidence of Mr. Combs having more than one girlfriend and getting he caught,” he said.

Seeking Combs’ release on a proposed $50 million bail package, Agnifilo tried to present his client as extraordinarily cooperative with prosecutors prior to his arrest, relocating from his homes in LA and Miami to reside in the Southern District of New York in anticipation of the indictment. He told the magistrate judge that he had personally collected Combs’ passport for the duration of the investigation and was in the process of selling his personal jet in order to gain the trust of the court.

“He did the exact opposite of what some defendants do when they are presenting problems,” the defense lawyer insisted, at one point holding up a stack of six dark blue passports to show that Combs and his close family members were not capable of leaving the country.

Combs mostly stared straight ahead while prosecutors spoke; he turned to his right to look at the lectern while Agnifilo spoke, intermittently nodding his head and down when the lawyer made his case.

Outside of the courthouse on Tuesday afternoon, Agnifilo said Combs looks forward to clearing his name.

“We’re going to stand by his side as he does,” he told reporters. “We believe in him wholeheartedly. he didn’t do these things. This is a 10-year relationship, there’s no coercion no crime.”

Combs’ arrest on Monday comes 10 months after Ventura, an R&B singer and 10-year girlfriend of Combs, sued him in November, recounting years of sexual abuse and manipulation, including rape. She claimed in her civil complaint he forced her to have sex with male prostitutes while he filmed them. The suit was settled the day after it was filed.

Ventura brought her suit in Manhattan federal court under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which gives a one-year “look-back window” for survivors of abuse to file lawsuits for claims otherwise barred by the statute of limitations.

Represented by attorney Douglas Wigdor of Wigdor LLP in New York, she accused Combs in her complaint of drawing her into an “ostentatious, fast-paced and drug-fueled lifestyle” shortly after she met him and signed to his label in 2005 — when she was 19 and he was 37.

She accused the producer-mogul of forcing her to engage in sex acts with male sex workers at high-end hotels while he masturbated in a masquerade mask and filmed the encounters, which he would refer to as “Freak Offs.”

The criminal indictment unsealed Tuesday also references the so-called “Freak Offs,” noting that the coordination of those events involved the transportation of “commercial sex workers across state lines and internationally.”

“Freak Offs occurred regularly, sometimes lasted multiple days, and often involved multiple commercial sex workers,” prosecutors wrote in the criminal indictment. “During Freak Offs, Combs distributed a variety of controlled substances to victims, in part to keep the victims obedient and compliant. Sometimes unbeknownst to the victims, Combs kept videos he filmed of victims engaging in sex acts with commercial sex workers.”

According to the complaint, Combs and the victims typically received IV fluids to recover from the physical exertion and drug use - including ketamine, ecstasy, and GHB - during the marathon sexual exploitation.

Several other people brought a flurry of civil actions against Combs in Manhattan federal court following his private settlement with Cassie. Last week, singer Dawn Richard filed a suit accusing Combs of abusing her while she was part of his Danity Kane and Dirty Money musical groups.

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