Sean (Diddy) Combs was due in court Tuesday on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges that he hit and abused women for over a decade and presided over an empire of sexual crimes.
The music mogul “engaged in a persistent and pervasive pattern of abuse toward women and other individuals,” according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
The indictment details allegations dating to 2008 that he abused, threatened and coerced women for years “to fulfil his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct.”
He is accused of inducing female victims and male sex workers into drugged-up, sometimes days-long sexual performances dubbed “Freak Offs” in the indictment, which refers obliquely to an attack on his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, that was captured on video.
Combs was arrested late Monday in Manhattan, roughly six months after federal authorities conducting a sex trafficking investigation raided his luxury homes in Los Angeles and Miami.
Over the past year, Combs has been sued by people who say he subjected them to physical or sexual abuse. He has denied many of those allegations, and his lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said outside the courthouse Tuesday morning that Combs would plead not guilty and that he would “fight like hell” to try to get his client released from custody.
More to come.