A second wave of lawsuits from a prominent Houston lawyer were filed against Sean “Diddy” Combs Sunday night on behalf of at least five more accusers, including three people who claim Combs sexually assaulted them as recently as 2022.
One man, a personal trainer, claims he was drugged on the night the Bad Boy Entertainment founder was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BET Awards in June 2022. At the after-party celebration, the man claims his unconscious body was passed around “like a party favor for [Combs’ guests] sexual enjoyment.”
The anonymous plaintiffs — who are all using a John or Jane Doe pseudonym — are being represented by attorney Tony Buzbee, who has said he is representing more than 120 clients against Combs. He filed a first batch of six lawsuits against the mogul last Monday. In a statement, Buzbee said he planned to file a total of seven lawsuits against Combs this week, bringing the total number of suits against Combs to more than two dozen.
In light of the mounting civil lawsuits and explosive allegations, Combs’ criminal defense team filed a motion with U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian on Sunday night, asking for a gag order that would prohibit “further extrajudicial statements from prospective witnesses and their lawyers that substantially interfere with Mr. Combs’s right to a fair trial.”
The new lawsuits compound the 54-year-old’s already extensive legal woes as he sits in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial on racketeering and sex trafficking charges. The embattled music mogul has pleaded not guilty as his trial is set to begin next May.
Representatives for Combs referred Rolling Stone to a statement they issued last week, which called Buzbee’s “barrage” of lawsuits a “clear attempt to garner publicity.” “Mr. Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defenses, and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone—adult or minor, man or woman,” the statement from Combs’ media team said.
Sunday’s new lawsuits detail behavior that allegedly took place between 2000 and 2022. One lawsuit comes from a woman who claims she was 13 years old when she was allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted by Combs and an unnamed celebrity following the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000. (Buzbee said unnamed celebrities mentioned in filings are not being formally added as defendants at this time.)
Two men and one woman claim Combs assaulted them in 2022. The personal trainer claims he was invited to Combs’ Holmby Hills mansion after the BET Awards and asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement as a condition of entry into the afterparty. Once the paperwork was signed, the man was handed a cocktail and instructed to take a few sips, the lawsuit states.
The man claims he was brought into a small room where nearly a dozen people were engaging in group-sex activities. After entering the room, the man allegedly began to feel “disoriented, dizzy and weak.” As the man was “realizing his significant impairment,” Combs allegedly approached him and “removed his pants, and began performing non-consensual oral sex onto him,” the lawsuit claims.
Combs then allegedly directed the man to perform oral sex on an unnamed celebrity, and due to the “haze of the drug,” the man “could not resist Combs’ coercion and ordering,” the lawsuit states. The man claims he lost consciousness at times and eventually woke up outside his apartment with no shirt, no phone and no idea how he got home.
Another plaintiff, a 29-year-old singer, claims she met Combs at a party in the New York City area in December 2022. Throughout the star-studded bash, the woman claims she noticed a widespread use of drugs, which were allegedly being pushed onto guests by people working for Combs.
Combs was the night’s host and allegedly approached the singer, striking up a conversation about her career and offering to feature her on a track. At one point, Combs suggested they head into his office to further discuss her music in private, the lawsuit claims.
The singer claims that despite only having one glass of wine, she began to feel disoriented. Once alone in the office and “due to the effects of her drugged drink, Combs raped and sexually assaulted Plaintiff,” the lawsuit claims. “Plaintiff could not stop him from doing so, as if she was trapped inside her body not participating but not able to resist.”
The woman claims she awoke the next morning disoriented, with blood on her legs, bruising on her lips and imprints on her arms and wrists, which led her to believe that she had been tied up with ropes. “As a result of this incident, Plaintiff has suffered significant emotional distress and trauma,” the lawsuit claims. “She continues to deal with the psychological and emotional consequences of the assault.”
A second man claims Combs sexually assaulted him during a promotional event for Cîroc in 2022. The Los Angeles-area businessman claims he knew Combs through renting the mogul luxury cars and fine jewelry. He attended the event to further network and at one point, Combs allegedly brought the man back into his private office, for what he believed was a business conversation. “Intoxicated and acting strangely,” Combs allegedly removed the man’s pants and exposed himself before groping the man’s genitals, according to the complaint. “The situation escalated until another individual, Professional Athlete A, entered the office and intervened, which ended the Combs’ assault of Plaintiff,” the lawsuit claims.
A fourth woman claims she met Combs in Las Vegas over Memorial Day weekend in 2014, including photos of Combs during an afterparty as part of her filing. After taking a few sips of her Cîroc vodka drink that was provided by Combs, the woman claims she began to feel nauseated and dizzy.
“The next thing Plaintiff recalls is waking up the following morning feeling very groggy and sore,” the lawsuit claims. “Her entire body hurt, and it felt difficult to move. As soon as she awoke, she saw Combs in the corner of the room, shirtless and yelling loudly and with animation at someone over the phone.” The woman claims she was “horrified to realize that she was raped by Combs.”
While Buzbee and his co-counsel, Andrew Van Arsdale, filed their first dozen lawsuits against Combs in federal court in the Southern District of New York, they also filed one in Manhattan Supreme Court late Sunday on behalf of a man who says Combs assaulted him inside a Harlem music studio in 2005. The John Doe alleges he was 21 years old and the owner of a private security firm when Combs allegedly spiked his drink, reached into his pants and “attempted to masturbate [the man’s] penis.”
Buzbee and Van Arsdale filed their initial round of lawsuits last week after announcing at a press conference that they had at least 120 clients with what they say were vetted claims against the music mogul. One of the lawsuits was from a man who claimed Combs grabbed his penis and groped him when he was 16 and attended one of Combs’ “white parties” in the Hamptons in 1998. The other lawsuits involved two women and two more men bringing separate allegations that Combs sexually assaulted them between 1995 and 2021.
Last Tuesday, Combs’ lawyers filed a letter asking a federal judge to direct prosecutors to reveal the names of the alleged victims in his criminal case. They argued Combs needs to know the names as soon as possible to prepare for his May 2025 trial and because he needs to identify any overlap between the accusers behind the civil lawsuits and the alleged victims linked to his criminal case. They said the clarificaiton is needed so they can respond to Combs’ civil accusations without running afoul of rules governing what they can say about the criminal case.
“The government is forcing [Combs], unfairly, to play a guessing game,” the four-page letter signed by Combs’ lawyers Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos, and obtained by Rolling Stone, read. In the letter, Combs’ lawyers said the government “opposes disclosure of alleged victims’ names at this stage.” A pre-trial hearing in the case is set for Dec. 18.
In his criminal indictment, Combs is accused of having “abused, threatened, and coerced” unidentified “women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires.” The filing states that Combs engaged in a “persistent and pervasive pattern of abuse toward women and other individuals,” including “verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual” abuse. Combs allegedly distributed drugs to his alleged victims to keep them obedient and compliant. Prosecutors were vague in the indictment as to the dates and details of the alleged abuse involving individuals other than Combs’ ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, who was identified as Victim 1.
If convicted as charged, Combs faces a minimum of 15 years in prison and up to life. Even with good behavior, the onetime billionaire Bad Boy Entertainment founder would likely remain behind bars until at least his late 60s.
Before the first round of Buzbee lawsuits, Combs already was facing a dozen other complaints filed over the last year that allege he subjected people to sexual abuse during his decades-long career as an industry impresario and gatekeeper. The deluge started when Ventura filed her graphic sex-trafficking complaint last November. Combs settled with Ventura for an undisclosed sum within 24 hours, but her 35-page complaint, now the heart of the music mogul’s criminal prosecution, opened the floodgates. Combs’ homes were raided in March, and in May, CNN obtained harrowing hotel surveillance video showing Combs throwing, kicking, stomping and dragging Ventura in the hallway of the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016. After first denying Ventura’s claims against him, Combs issued a video apology related to the incident, admitting his “behavior on that video is inexcusable.”
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