Sean Combs Pleads Not Guilty to Sex Trafficking, Racketeering Charges

Embattled music mogul Sean Combs has been charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and interstate transportation to engage in prostitution, a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday in New York revealed. The sprawling and sordid RICO case, which claims Combs used his vast wealth and prestige to run a criminal enterprise centered on “his own sexual gratification” between 2008 and this year, carries the possibility of life in prison for the Bad Boy Entertainment founder.

A downcast Combs, 54, appeared in a courtroom in lower Manhattan Tuesday, wearing gray sweatpants and plain black T-shirt. Throughout the two-hour hearing, Combs mostly faced forward and spoke aloud once as he pleaded not guilty to the three charges. The scene played out hours after he was arrested and escorted from the Manhattan hotel where he’d been staying. Combs’ attorney Marc Agnifilo said he was “disappointed” with the “unjust prosecution,” calling Combs “an innocent man with nothing to hide.” 

Prosecutors asked that Combs — whom they labelled a “serial abuser and a serial obstructer“ — be held without bail. “As reflected by the gravity of the charges in the Indictment, the defendant is dangerous and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community,” they wrote in a letter to the judge, later emphasizing in court their fear that Combs would tamper with witnesses and victims. Combs’ defense asked the court to “trust” the disgraced mogul, requesting for Combs to be released to home detention with electronic monitoring and a $50 million bond secured by his Miami real estate.

A judge agreed with prosecutors, denying Combs bail and sending him to jail while he awaits trial, marshals whisking Combs away before he could issue parting words to his family. Judge Robyn Tarnofsky said she had “very significant concerns” about Combs’ substance abuse and “what appears to be anger issues,” adding that Combs couldn’t be relied upon to trust himself, nor could his lawyer control him.

On Tuesday morning, Combs’ adult sons, Quincy, Christian, and Justin were seen arriving at the courthouse in lower Manhattan in support of their father. During a short recess before the judge made her decision, Combs sat alone as his lawyers exited the courtroom. He closed his eyes, put his hand on his chin and bounced his leg before glancing back towards the pews where his family was sitting to give them a slight wave. Combs garnered a smattering of additional supporters outside the courthouse, too. One man screamed “Fuck y’all!” while wearing a Combs sweatshirt, while others drove by yelling “P. Diddy!” One black Cadillac rolled slowly past the courthouse blasting Combs’ 1997 hit “I’ll Be Missing You” honking its horn.

Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, ran through the indictment during a press conference, concluding his remarks by noting, “A year ago, Sean Combs stood in Times Square and was handed a key to New York City. Today, he’s been indicted and will face justice in the Southern District of New York.” (Combs returned the key, after it was rescinded, earlier this summer.)

“We are not done. This investigation is ongoing. And I encourage anyone with information about this case to come forward and to do it quickly,” Williams added. “We are committed to bringing justice to everyone victimized by the defendant. … I’m not taking anything off the table.” In a court filing, prosecutors said investigators already had interviewed more than 50 “victims and witnesses” and that the probe collected evidence through more than 300 grand jury subpoenas sent to individuals, airlines, hotels, car services, banks, escort services, and entities including Combs’ companies.

Outside the courtroom before Combs made his appearance, lawyers for his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura sat watching a livestream of the DOJ press conference. The lawyers, Douglas Wigdor and Meredith Firetog, filed Ventura’s blockbuster lawsuit against Combs last November. In the complaint, Ventura said Combs subjected her to a vicious cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking, and that he violently raped her when she tried to break up with him.

Ventura isn’t named in the indictment, but the 14-page filing specifically mentions a 2016 incident at a Los Angeles hotel where Combs “kicked, dragged and thew a vase at a woman” in a caught-on-video attack. In her lawsuit, Ventura detailed a 2016 physical assault with the same circumstances, saying it happened at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles. Her account was confirmed when CNN published surveillance video in May that showed a towel-clad Combs pursuing a barefoot and fleeing Ventura down a hotel hallway. At an elevator bank, Combs was seen throwing Ventura to the floor, kicking her, stomping on her, and attempting to drag her back to a room. He was then seen grabbing what appeared to be a vase off a table and hurling it in her direction. (Combs originally denied the beating, but later apologized when the video was made public, saying he made “no excuses” for the beating.)

In their detention letter to the court Tuesday, prosecutors referred to Ventura’s lawsuit by the date it was filed. They went on to say that a hotel security staffer eventually “intervened” in the 2016 incident, and that Combs “attempted to offer the hotel security officer a stack of cash to ensure his silence.” They added that Combs allegedly paid more than $46,000 to cover damages to a penthouse hotel room in Manhattan in 2012. In her lawsuit, Ventura alleged Combs paid tens of thousands of dollars for damage to a New York City hotel in 2013 after staging a drug-fueled sex party there dubbed a “Freak Off.”

“For decades, Sean Combs…abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct,” the indictment reads. “To do so, Combs relied on the employees, resources and the influence of his multi-faceted business empire that he led and controlled.”

Prosecutors said the “Combs Enterprise” was comprised of Combs’ various business endeavors in the “media, entertainment, and lifestyle industries,” including Bad Boy, Combs Global, RevoltTV and his “alcoholic spirits business,” which promoted the Cîroc vodka brand owned by Diageo. They said Combs and other “members and associates” of his alleged enterprise used their power to “intimidate, threaten, and lure female victims into Combs’ orbit, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship.”

Combs allegedly used threats of violence to make victims engage in “Freak Offs,” prosecutors said in court filings. They alleged Combs “arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded” the highly orchestrated encounters. And they claimed Combs kept the “sensitive, embarrassing, and incriminating recordings” to use as “collateral to ensure the continued obedience and silence of the victims.”

On top of allegedly transporting commercial sex workers “across state lines and internationally,” Combs also allegedly “distributed a variety of controlled substances to victims” during the purported Freak Offs, including ketamine, ecstasy, and gamma hydroxybutyrate (“GHB”), the court filings made public on Tuesday said. Prosecutors claimed that Combs used the drugs “in part to keep the victims obedient and compliant,” so they would “continue to engage in Freak Offs, despite fatigue, physical and emotional exhaustion, and pain.”

Prosecutors said unidentified members of Combs’ alleged enterprise also helped facilitate his Freak Offs by booking hotel rooms and travel for victims and sourcing the supplies. The indictment said that during the raids of Combs’ homes in Miami and Los Angeles in March, cops seized “narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant.” Authorities also reportedly seized firearms and ammunition, including three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers, as well as a drum magazine. Prosecutors said two of the three defaced AR-15s were found “hidden” in Combs’ Miami bedroom closet. One had a 10-round magazine fully loaded with large caliber ammunition. prosecutors said. The second allegedly had a 30-round magazine loaded with 19 rounds of the same .223 ammo.

According to prosecution filings, Combs brazenly pressured witnesses and victims to stay silent amid threats of negative publicity or legal or law enforcement action. Prosecutors say the mogul and his associates even tried “attempted bribery” and feeding victims and witnesses “a false narrative of events in an effort to conceal Combs’ crimes.” At least two of these calls were recorded, prosecutors alleged.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that one such call took place just three days after Ventura filed her lawsuit. They said Combs reached out to another alleged victim of his sexual abuse and recorded portions of their conversations using the cellphone of an unidentified co-conspirator. During the calls, Combs allegedly asked for the woman’s support and “friendship,” and attempted to convince the woman that she had willingly engaged in acts constituting sexual abuse, prosecutors said.

“The defendant also assured the victim that if she ‘needed’ the defendant too, she ‘ain’t got worry about nothing else,’” prosecutors said. They described the conversation as “a thinly veiled attempt to coerce the victim” into adopting and supporting Combs’ “false version of events” to protect him. They claimed Combs later contacted witnesses who had received grand jury subpoenas.

The indictment accused Combs of wielding control over his victims through “promises of career opportunities, [and] granting and threatening to withhold financial support,” as well as “tracking their whereabouts, dictating the victims’ appearance, monitoring their medical records, controlling their housing, and supplying them with controlled substances.” In her lawsuit, Ventura said Combs became “deeply entrenched” in every aspect of her life, paying for her apartment and having her medical records sent directly to him.

Notably, arson was listed among the alleged acts carried out by the purported racketeering conspiracy. In a detention letter accompanying the indictment, prosecutors shared details about one alleged incident from December 2011. They said Combs and a co-conspirator “kidnaped an individual at gunpoint to facilitate breaking into and entering the residence of another” person, referred to as Individual-1. About two weeks later, the co-conspirator “set fire to Individual-1’s vehicle by slicing open the car’s convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside the interior.” (The alleged kidnapping victim appears to be different from Individual-1, as Combs’ attorney said she was a woman.)

When Ventura sued last year, she alleged that when she tried to move on from Combs and had a brief romantic relationship with musician Kid Cudi in 2011, Combs allegedly beat her. Combs later told Ventura he planned to blow up the rapper’s car in his driveway, her lawsuit claimed. In a statement to The New York Times in November, Cudi confirmed that his car exploded. “This is all true,” he said. (Ventura and Combs quickly settled that suit.)

In more footnotes added to the Tuesday court filings, prosecutors mentioned several other accusers who have filed sexual misconduct lawsuits against Combs over the last year, noting that the claims against Combs related to threats and physical and sexual violence date back to the 1990s. The accusers whose lawsuits were noted included Joi Dickerson-Neal, Liza Gardner, Crystal McKinney and Dawn Richard.

Earlier on Monday, before his arrest, Combs was spotted posing for photos with his children in Harlem. Over that last few months, he has been keeping a relatively low profile. In their court filings Tuesday, prosecutors said their extensive probe collected evidence from 90 cellphones, laptops, and cloud storage accounts, as well as over 30 other electronic and storage devices, such as hard drives, thumb drives, cameras, and a surveillance system. They said much of the electronic data came from Combs himself, as well as coconspirators, victims, and witnesses.

If convicted as charged, Combs is facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum of life in prison.

Ventura’s 35-page, highly detailed lawsuit sent shock waves through the music industry. She described suffering severe beatings that left her with “bruises, burst lips, black eyes and bleeding [skin].” She alleged Combs forced her to recruit male sex workers from escort services and “pour excessive amounts of oil over herself” for the alleged “Freak Offs.” She said that if she refused Combs’ demands, he would beat her. In the months since Ventura first dropped her bombshell lawsuit, eight more women and one man have come forward to sue Combs with allegations ranging from sex trafficking to sexual assault.

While Combs issued a public apology for the shocking hotel surveillance video, he has denied any wrongdoing in the other lawsuits. As legal pressure has mounted, he stepped down from the chairmanship of his Revolt TV media company and sold his stake in the company. More than a dozen companies fled his e-commerce platform. In January, liquor giant Diageo cut him loose in a private settlement under which Combs will no longer be a joint owner of the tequila brand DeLeón or have any ties to Cîroc vodka. Once a billionaire, a new Forbes estimate places his net worth at roughly $400 million. 

Combs’ 10-bedroom, gated neo-European estate just down the street from the Playboy Mansion in the tony Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles was listed for sale earlier this month with an asking price of $61.5 million.

From Rolling Stone US.