Sean “Diddy” Combs’s legal troubles are piling up.
While he has been incarcerated at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., awaiting trial on federal racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution charges, the number of civil lawsuits against the hip-hop mogul has grown — and could soon swell to over 100.
Combs, who pleaded not guilty in his criminal case and maintains his innocence, is currently the defendant in more than a dozen civil lawsuits filed in the past year. The first was brought against the embattled music producer by his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in November 2023, accusing him of rape, abuse and sex trafficking. He settled the case with the singer a day later, but it led to a barrage of others.
Now Texas lawyer Tony Buzbee said he and a team of lawyers will be filing 120 individual sexual assault lawsuits against Combs within the next month.
The latest
At a Oct. 1 press conference, Buzbee announced that the 120 individual sexual assault lawsuits against the Bad Boys Entertainment founder are forthcoming. The alleged assaults occurred between 2000 and 2020 in New York, Los Angeles and Miami at events including Combs’s famed “White Parties” as well as album release events and holiday parties.The alleged victims are male and female and ranged from age 9 to 38 at the time.
“The biggest secret in the entertainment industry, that really wasn’t a secret at all, has finally been revealed to the world,” Buzbee said at the press conference. “The wall of silence has now been broken.”
Buzbee also vowed to “expose the enablers who enabled this conduct behind closed doors. We will pursue this matter no matter who the evidence implicates.”
Combs denied the allegations through a member of his legal team.
“As Mr. Combs’s legal team has emphasized, he cannot address every meritless allegation in what has become a reckless media circus,” attorney Erica Wolff said in a statement to Yahoo Entertainment. “That said, Mr. Combs emphatically and categorically denies as false and defamatory any claim that he sexually abused anyone, including minors. He looks forward to proving his innocence and vindicating himself in court, where the truth will be established based on evidence, not speculation.”
Buzbee’s co-counsel is Andrew Van Arsdale, who represented more than 200 victims in a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America.
The many cases against Combs
Even if Combs avoids prosecution in his federal case, for which he faces a sentence of 15 years to life in prison if convicted on the three charges, his legal team is bogged down with civil suits, which could take years to resolve. And that’s before the promised additional 120 lawsuits are filed.
Here are all the allegations he’s facing.
Cassie Ventura: On Nov. 16, 2023, the singer, who dated Combs off and on from 2007 to 2018, sued him for rape, abuse and sex trafficking. They settled the lawsuit the next day, with Combs not admitting to any wrongdoing. Ventura’s allegations are the basis of the federal case against him.
Joi Dickerson-Neal: Days later, on Nov. 23, 2023, Dickerson-Neal filed a lawsuit claiming Combs drugged, sexually assaulted and abused her in New York City in 1991 when she was a college student. She also alleges she was the victim of “revenge porn.”
Liza Gardner: The same day that Dickerson-Neal’s lawsuit was filed, Gardner sued Combs, alleging that he and R&B singer-songwriter Aaron Hall took turns raping her and a friend after they met at a 1990 event at the New York office of MCA Records when she was 16.
Combs denied both allegations, calling them “fabricated” and a “money grab.”
Jane Doe: A fourth civil lawsuit was filed against Combs on Dec. 6, 2023, by a woman alleging that she was sex-trafficked and gang-raped by Combs, his Bad Boys Entertainment employee Harve Pierre and an unidentified third man in a bathroom at Combs’s studio in 2003. She said she was 17 and a high school junior at the time.
Combs issued a statement denying all the allegations, saying he “watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy,” but “enough is enough.”
Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones: Combs was sued by Jones, a producer on Combs’s 2023 album, for sexual harassment and assault on Feb. 26. Jones claimed he was drugged, waking up naked and disoriented in bed with Combs and two sex workers. Jones made a litany of other allegations, including that Combs was involved in a shooting at a Los Angeles recording studio in 2022.
In March 25, Jones amended his complaint to name Cuba Gooding Jr. as a co-defendant, alleging that the Oscar winner sexually harassed and assaulted him on Combs’s yacht. Like Combs, Gooding denied the allegations. Combs’s son Justin is also a co-defendant in the lawsuit.
That same day, Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami were raided in what was called a sex-trafficking investigation. His attorney said Combs was innocent and he’d “fight … to clear his name.”
Crystal McKinney: Hotel surveillance video of Combs seemingly assaulting Ventura in 2016 was published by CNN. Combs issued a video statement taking responsibility for the alleged physical abuse, saying, “My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video.” He also said he had sought therapy and was working to “be a better man.”
That led another accuser, McKinney, to file her lawsuit on May 21. She alleged that Combs drugged and sexually assaulted her at his New York City studio in 2003 when she was a 22-year-old model. She said modeling career opportunities dried up after the alleged incident, and she believes Combs “blackballed” her professionally.
April Lampros: The former fashion student, who was mentored by Combs, sued him on May 23 over “four terrifying sexual encounters” that occurred in 1995, 1996 and 2000. During one, she claimed he forced her to take ecstasy and then have sex with his then-girlfriend Kim Porter. She claims Combs and Porter, who died in 2018, later had her fired from her job.
Lampros also claimed that in 2023 an unidentified man approached her partner and said he had seen a “sex tape” of Lampros and Combs years earlier. The alleged video was filmed without her consent.
Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith: A Michigan inmate with a lengthy rap sheet filed a lawsuit against Combs in June, alleging that the performer sexually assaulted him at a 1997 Detroit hotel party. Because Combs’s legal team didn’t respond to the complaint, the plaintiff was awarded a $100 million default judgment. The lawsuit has since been set aside pending a hearing and is expected to be dismissed.
Dawn Richard: The former Danity Kane singer Dawn Richard filed a lawsuit against Combs on Sept. 10 alleging sexual abuse. She claims he groped her on numerous occasions and trapped her inside a locked car for two hours. Richard also said Combs withheld payment for work on albums and hosted parties at which intoxicated young girls were sexually violated. She also claimed he threatened her life when she tried to intervene after witnessing his alleged abuse of Ventura.
Wolff, Combs’s attorney, accused Richard of attempting “to rewrite history” and seeking “a payday.”
Days after Richard’s suit, on Sept. 16, Combs was arrested on federal racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution charges. He pleaded not guilty to the charges. The case, handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, alleges that Combs, over more than 16 years, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires. Part of it was forcing victims to participate in “freak offs,” sexual performances that lasted days, with male sex workers while Combs watched.
The victims were allegedly coerced into participating, drugged and recorded without their knowledge. Prosecutors claim Combs created a “criminal enterprise” — through his various businesses and involving employees and associates — to carry out in crimes including sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.
Thalia Graves: While Combs remains in jail, another accuser sued him on Sept. 24, alleging Combs and his bodyguard Joseph “Big Joe” Sherman drugged, bound and raped her in 2001. Graves claimed they filmed the attack and showed the recording to other people. Both men have denied the allegations.
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