Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs charged with racketeering, sex trafficking
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) – Superstar rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been indicted on charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The music mogul, who was arrested on Monday, also faces a third charge of “transportation to engage in prostitution,” the US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York said.
Combs’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, told reporters that the music mogul’s “spirits are good.”
“He’s going to fight this with all of his energy and all of his might,” he said.
Combs is the target of several civil lawsuits that characterize him as a violent sexual predator who used alcohol and drugs to subdue his victims.
The rapper’s luxury homes in Miami and Los Angeles were raided by agents in March in a heavily publicized bicoastal operation that indicated a federal investigation and potential criminal case was mounting against Combs.
The powerful music industry figure, who has gone by various monikers including Puff Daddy and P Diddy, was credited as being key to hip hop’s journey from the streets to luxury clubs.
He has amassed vast wealth over the decades, not least due to his ventures in the liquor industry.
Despite his efforts to cultivate the image of a smooth party kingpin and business magnate, a spate of lawsuits describe Combs as a violent man who used his celebrity to prey on women.
Combs has no major convictions but has long been trailed by allegations of physical assault, dating back to the 1990s.
The floodgates opened last year after singer Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, alleged Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs as well as a 2018 rape.
The pair met when Ventura was 19 and Combs was 37, after which he signed her to his label and they began a relationship.
The bombshell suit was settled out of court but a string of similarly lurid sexual assault claims followed — including one in December by a woman who alleged Combs and others gang-raped her when she was 17.
Disturbing surveillance video then emerged in May showing Combs physically assaulting his then-girlfriend Ventura, corroborating allegations she made in the now-settled case.
