Federal prosecutors have added two costs 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 lady to interact in industrial intercourse acts from no less than 2021 to 2024.
The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Manhattan, additionally alleges Combs was concerned in transporting the girl — recognized solely as Sufferer 2 — and different folks, together with industrial intercourse employees, to interact in prostitution throughout the identical timeframe.
The brand new costs are along with racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking costs filed in opposition to Combs when he was arrested last September. They enhance the overall variety of costs in opposition to him from three to 5.
Combs, 55, is scheduled to face trial Could 5. He stays locked up at a federal jail in Brooklyn. A message looking for touch upon the brand new costs was left together with his representatives.
Combs denies committing any crimes and has pleaded not responsible to the primary set of costs, which allege that he coerced and abused girls for years with assist from a community of associates and workers, whereas silencing victims via blackmail and violence, together with kidnapping, arson and bodily beatings.
His arraignment on the brand new costs 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 lodge hallway. Prosecutors contend the assault occurred throughout a “Freak Off”. Combs’ attorneys argue the footage was nothing greater than a “glimpse into a fancy however decade-long consensual relationship” between the 2.
Combs’ attorneys 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 strains.
“The federal government has concocted a felony case primarily based totally on allegations that Mr Combs and two of his longtime girlfriends typically introduced a 3rd celebration — a male escort — into their sexual relationship,” Combs lawyer Alexandra A E Shapiro wrote in a February court docket submitting.
“Every of the three costs within the case are premised on the speculation that one of these 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 no less than three girls whom they stated Combs compelled to interact in industrial intercourse acts. In trade, prosecutors stated, he supplied them with cash, profession alternatives and fee of lease and housing bills.
