Recordings, blackmail, psychological and physical abuse, money, calls, threats. During a closed-door hearing in Manhattan federal court, Sean Diddy Combs was charged with exploiting his business contacts to create a conspiracy to engage in racketeering, sex and drug trafficking, and kidnapping. The charges are the latest chapter in an investigation that has been going on for nearly a year. The number of victims has not been identified or made public because the investigation is ongoing, and more witnesses may step forward. The 54-year-old producer, however, continues to plead innocence.
Combs allegedly used his influence to organize “freak offs,” secret meetings in his villas or hotel rooms between Miami and Los Angeles attended by dozens of people forced to have sex, sometimes even recording them. To prevent them from rebelling, Diddy would make career-ending threats, monitor them remotely with phone calls, or drug them. Around him, a group of people–security agents or high-ranking supervisors–helped him accomplish all this with constant supplies of lubricants, ketamine, and other sedatives, but also covering for him if anyone tried to oppose him, or when, during one of these “freak offs,” the rooms were damaged.
Combs was arrested last night while returning to the Park Hyatt hotel on 57th Street, where he had been staying for several weeks. One of his attorneys, Marc Agnifilo, expressed his disappointment by claiming that he was caught off guard by Homeland Security Investigations agents, as Diddy had traveled to New York to cooperate with justice, “in anticipation of this charge.”
“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community,” Mr. Combs’ legal team said in a statement. “He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal.”
The hearing in Manhattan is the turning point in the investigation that began nearly a year ago. In November 2023, his ex-girlfriend Cassidy Ventura had reported him for sexual assault. The case had been dismissed the next day without much explanation.
In March 2024, in a joint raid, federal agents had searched two of the producer’s mansions, one in Miami and one in Los Angeles, on sex trafficking warrants. At a press conference Tuesday morning, Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, reported that inside the electronic devices found at the time were hundreds of “freak off” videos, with images of the victims, and stocks of lubricants.
Last May, CNN recovered and published surveillance camera recordings from a Los Angeles hotel where Combs and Ventura had stayed for a few nights. From the images, the producer can be seen chasing and grabbing his former partner by the hair, kicking her in the stomach while she is down until she manages to escape. Regarding the affair, Williams reported that at the time, Combs allegedly bought the silence of one of the hotel staff members with cash.
