Prosecutors list two new victims, say Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs dangled woman off balcony
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New elements of the case against Sean “Diddy” Combs were revealed Thursday as federal prosecutors expanded their indictment against the hip-hop mogul, saying he forced two additional women into taking part in a sex-trafficking scheme and dangled another woman over a balcony.
The superseding indictment, filed in a Manhattan courthouse, increases the number of alleged victims of sex trafficking from one to three. It also adds four years to the alleged criminal conspiracy, saying it began in 2004 instead of 2008 and lasted until 2024.
Combs, being held in a federal correctional facility in Brooklyn, N.Y., has pleaded not guilty to the charges and maintained he is innocent of any wrongdoing.
Sean “Diddy” Combs was the only defendant indicted this week in a sweeping sex trafficking and racketeering investigation. But federal prosecutors made clear that they do not believe he was the only one responsible. Is the indictment just the beginning of a larger case against alleged conspirators?
The expanded indictment does not add charges to the sprawling September indictment that alleges the founder of Bad Boy Entertainment long used his empire to coerce victims into sex in gatherings known as “freak-offs.”
Combs faces three counts: racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and violating the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting someone across state lines for the purpose of prostitution. The 54-year-old music icon is set to go on trial May 5.
“The prosecution’s theory remains flawed,” said Marc Agnifilo, an attorney for Combs, responding to the expanded indictment. The lawyer noted that there were no new charges, dismissed the latest allegations as “ridiculous” and countered that federal prosecutors were alleging two of Combs’ “former girlfriends were not girlfriends at all, but were prostitutes.”
Combs was arrested in September after nearly a year of investigation by federal authorities. The day after his arrest, prosecutors unsealed a grand jury indictment.
That indictment listed a “Victim-1,” whose allegations mirrored those of Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, a singer and former girlfriend of Combs who sued him in 2023. The mogul settled that lawsuit. The expanded indictment refers to “Victim-2” and “Victim-3” but does not reveal their identities.
It alleges Combs “used force, threats of force, and coercion to cause victims, including but not limited to three female victims,” to engage in commercial sex acts.
Prosecutors allege that, as part of a sex-trafficking scheme, Combs and his entourage engaged in violence, abuse, arson and kidnapping. Thursday’s superseding indictment alleged that, during one kidnapping, the mogul brandished a firearm.
The refreshed indictment also refers to a 2016 incident in which Combs is accused of dangling a woman off a balcony. That allegation resembles one made last year in a lawsuit by Bryana Bongolan. The suits says Bongolan was in Ventura’s apartment asleep when Combs arrived and banged on the door. Once inside, the lawsuit claims, he grabbed her and held her over a banister.
‘The Fall of Diddy,’ the latest documentary series about Sean Combs, features additional details and new allegations against the disgraced hip-hop mogul, who is awaiting trial on federal charges, including sex trafficking and racketeering.
Combs’ upcoming trial is expected to last at least four weeks. Agnifilo, in court filings, has accused investigators with the Department of Homeland Security of “strategically leaking confidential grand jury material and information, including the 2016 Intercontinental videotape, to prejudice the public and potential jurors against Mr. Combs.”
Combs’ attorneys have unsuccessfully sought to exclude evidence they say was leaked, including the 2016 video, which shows Combs and Ventura in a hallway of the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles.
The video, obtained and published by CNN in March, shows Combs chasing Ventura down the hallway, kicking her, striking her and throwing a vase at her before dragging her back to the door of a room. The video, which quickly went viral, confirmed at least some of the physical abuse allegations against the singer detailed in a lawsuit filed in November.
Since the first indictment, a growing number of people have sued Combs, accusing him of sexual abuse, some of them minors at the time of the alleged acts. None of the federal allegations involve minors.
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