Federal prosecutors have added two fees to Sean “Diddy” Combs ‘ indictment, increasing on allegations that the jailed hip-hop mogul engaged in intercourse trafficking as just lately as final 12 months.
A superseding indictment filed Friday (Apr 4) accuses Combs of utilizing power, fraud, or coercion to compel a girl to have interaction in industrial intercourse acts from not less than 2021 to 2024.
The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Manhattan, additionally alleges Combs was concerned in transporting the lady — recognized solely as Sufferer 2 — and different individuals, together with industrial intercourse employees, to have interaction in prostitution throughout the identical timeframe.
The brand new fees are along with racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking fees filed in opposition to Combs when he was arrested last September. They improve the full variety of fees in opposition to him from three to 5.
Combs, 55, is scheduled to face trial Might 5. He stays locked up at a federal jail in Brooklyn. A message searching for touch upon the brand new fees was left together with his representatives.
Combs denies committing any crimes and has pleaded not responsible to the primary set of fees, which allege that he coerced and abused girls for years with assist from a community of associates and staff, whereas silencing victims by blackmail and violence, together with kidnapping, arson and bodily beatings.
His arraignment on the brand new fees has not been scheduled.
Federal prosecutors allege the I’ll Be Lacking You singer and Dangerous Boy Information founder used his “energy and status” as a music star to induce feminine victims into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances with male intercourse employees in occasions dubbed “Freak Offs”.
Central to the case is a March 2016 video displaying Combs hitting and kicking his then-girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie, in a Los Angeles resort hallway. Prosecutors contend the assault occurred throughout a “Freak Off”. Combs’ legal professionals argue the footage was nothing greater than a “glimpse into a posh however decade-long consensual relationship” between the 2.
Combs’ legal professionals contend the case ought to by no means have been introduced and are combating to dismiss a cost involving allegations he transported a male escort throughout state traces.
“The federal government has concocted a legal case based mostly totally on allegations that Mr Combs and two of his longtime girlfriends typically introduced a 3rd occasion — a male escort — into their sexual relationship,” Combs lawyer Alexandra A E Shapiro wrote in a February court docket submitting.
“Every of the three fees within the case are premised on the idea that the sort of sexual exercise is a federal crime,” Shapiro added.
Friday’s superseding indictment is the second filed in Combs’ case.
Within the first, in January, federal prosecutors disclosed that their case concerned not less than three girls whom they stated Combs compelled to have interaction in industrial intercourse acts. In alternate, prosecutors stated, he offered them with cash, profession alternatives and fee of hire and housing bills.
