Diddy charged with racketeering and sex trafficking

The music mogul is accused of drugging and beating women into taking part in orgies

Disgraced rap icon Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been charged with sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Prosecutors claim that Combs drugged his victims and forced them to take part in orgies which would last days.

Combs was arrested in New York on Monday, and appeared before a federal judge in Manhattan the following day, where he pleaded not guilty to running a large-scale sex trafficking operation.

According to an indictment unsealed hours after his arrest, the rap mogul enticed vulnerable women to take part in orgies – which he called “Freak Offs” – with promises of financial or career support. Once in Combs’ orbit, these women were allegedly plied with drugs and transported by his employees to hotels, where male prostitutes were brought in to perform “highly orchestrated” sex acts with them. Everything was recorded on camera for Combs’ gratification.

This video footage was used as leverage to force the women to participate in subsequent “Freak Offs,” prosecutors claimed. Physical violence was also used to ensure their compliance, they continued, alleging that Combs “assaulted women by, among other things, striking, punching, dragging, throwing objects at, and kicking them.”

The trafficking scheme began around 2008, prosecutors claimed. Combs started to behave violently towards his victims in 2009. Some of this abuse was witnessed by hotel staff, who told law enforcement officers that they were bribed to stay silent.

Earlier this year, “law enforcement seized various Freak Off supplies, including narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant” in searches of Combs’ properties in Florida and California, the indictment stated.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Combs’ lawyer argued that all the people involved in the orgies were “consenting adults,” and that Combs intends to fight the charges “to the end.” 

Despite offering to post a $50 million bond, Combs was denied bail and jailed in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. He is due back before the Manhattan court on Wednesday afternoon.

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The federal charges are the latest in a litany of sex abuse allegations against Combs, whose Bad Boy Records label was once worth an estimated $100 million. Earlier this summer, Combs was sued by model Crystal McKinney, who accused him of drugging and raping her in 2003. McKinney’s lawsuit was filed just days after a video emerged showing Combs beating his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in 2016. Ventura brought her own lawsuit against Combs, which was settled within a day of its filing for an undisclosed sum.

Combs has been sued by a total of eleven former associates. One of them, producer Rodney Jones, has accused Combs of a multitude of serious crimes, including drug trafficking, a shooting, and the sexual abuse of minors.