Sean “Diddy” Combs was once again denied bail on November 27, marking a fourth judge’s rejection of his requests for pretrial release. The Bad Boy Records founder was arrested on September 16, 2024 for alleged sex trafficking and racketeering. Prosecutors have opposed Combs’s push for bail since his first court appearance in the case, alleging extensive evidence of violent behavior and purported efforts to meddle with case proceedings.
Prosecutors said that Combs “bribed” security officers with $100,000 to destroy surveillance footage showing him beating Cassie Ventura in a hotel hallway nearly a decade ago. This attack unfolded as Ventura was trying to get away from a “freak off” — the name of drug-fueled parties that involved Combs directing women to engage in sexual activity with male sex workers, masturbating during these encounters, and sometimes recording them. Combs used his associates to contact the security guards and carry out this payoff, prosecutors said.
And in 2023, as allegation after allegation against Combs surfaced, his associates contacted a former employee to tell her that she did not witness abuse and that what she had seen was just a “normal” relationship. Combs also called another victim and tried to feed them a bogus story that their participation in “freak offs” was consensual, prosecutors said. Combs, who has been using other inmates’ messaging accounts to contact family from jail, has directed associates to contact “multiple” possible witnesses and victims in his case, prosecutors said. Combs allegedly even had a family member set up a three-way call with a co-conspirator where he and this associate used “coded language” to talk about his case.
Both in his November 22, 2024 bail hearing as well as in court papers, prosecutors cited Combs’s PR strategy as an effort to sway jurors. They said that Combs “meticulously” planned a post around his birthday showing six of his children singing him “Happy Birthday” on the phone. While the video was initially posted to his children’s personal pages, Combs was “not satisfied that it would reach the correct demographic,” prosecutors said in court filings on November 26, 2024. Combs allegedly told a relative that he had been tracking “analytics” and told them to post this video to his page. They also emphasized his alleged intimidation tactics with women, which included brandishing guns, threatening them, coming to their house unannounced, and trying to beat down the door “on one occasion with a hammer.” Combs also lashed out at his staff “threatening to kill them, throwing objects at them, and being struck, punched, and shoved by the defendant, and seeing him do the same to others.” This, combined with Combs’s efforts to obstruct proceedings, “has proven the defendant’s dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence,” prosecutors said.
The indictment against Combs lays out a disturbing history of accused abuse over “decades” and charges him with racketeering conspiracy; sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion; and transportation to engage in prostitution. Manhattan federal prosecutors maintain that Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct.” Combs, with the aid of his staff, wielded his business empire for the purpose of his “criminal enterprise,” the Feds said. Court papers in his criminal case detail allegations that Combs abused women for years and manipulated them into partaking in sexual performances with male sex workers. Civil actions against Combs also accuse him of sexual abuse against boys and men. Combs was able to maintain power over the women with drugs and threats — and his immense financial resources.
After luring women into his lurid world, often under the false auspices of a romantic relationship, Combs allegedly compelled them to participate in described as “freak offs,” prosecutors argued. These “freak offs,” authorities said, “were elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded.” Prosecutors said these parties happened often and routinely spanned multiple days. Combs has pleaded not guilty in the case.
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