Two months before Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking trial begins in New York, the U.S. Attorney’s office today brought down a new charge against the “All About the Benjamins” performer and shoved back hard on the former mini-mogul’s efforts to have evidence held by federal agents squashed.
“The S2 Indictment contains no new charged offenses but includes additional allegations related to the racketeering conspiracy charged in Count One,” a short accompanying letter to Thursday’s superseding indictment says. This is the second superseding indictment against Combs since his arrest last fall. “Specifically, the S2 Indictment contains additional allegations as to the means and methods of the racketeering enterprise related to forced labor.”
According to prosecutors, one of the ways that forced labor was induced was Combs demanding sex with staff. “These employees to believe they would be harmed — including by losing their jobs — if they did not comply with his demands,” the latest indictment explains. At one point the document filed in federal court gets very specific with its new claim. “With respect to one employee, Combs used physical force, psychological harm, financial harm, and reputational harm, and/or threats of the same to cause the employee to engage in sex acts.”
Combs was arrested on September 16 in a Manhattan hotel lobby. Looking at life behind bars if found guilty, the not guilty pleading Combs was charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. Awaiting a May 5 starting trial, Combs is incarcerated at Brooklyn’s hardcore Metropolitan Detention Center, where United Healthcare CEO alleged assassin Luigi Mangione and convicted crypto crook Samuel Bankman-Fried, are too. Accused of multiple rapes, assaults, attacks, threats and drug-fueled “freak offs” sex parties, Combs has repeatedly been denied a $50 million bail.
As they have repeatedly in the past, Diddy’s defense team praised their client today while deriding prosecutors.
“Mr. Combs has said it before and will say it again: he vehemently denies the accusations made by the SDNY,” co-lead lawyer Marc Agnifilo said in a statement after the new indictment came down. “He looks forward to his day in court when it will become clear that he has never forced anyone to engage in sexual acts against their will. Many former employees stand by his side, prepared to attest to the dedication, hard work, and inspiration they experienced while helping build groundbreaking, award-winning businesses.”
To that, the SDNY also filed for Judge Arun Subramanian their response to Combs’ hope to strip some wide-ranging evidence from the case
“In an attempt to suppress powerful electronic evidence of his guilt, the defendant makes two challenges to the search warrants authorizing the evidence’s seizure,” asserts the government’s opposition to Combs motion to suppress what he called the so-called “unconstitutionally broad” warrants in a February 23 filing. “Neither challenge meets the demanding standard for suppression, and the motion should be denied without a hearing.”
Signed off on by two different judges, the warrants were used on the raids last spring on the much-accused Bad Boy Records founder’s LA and Miami homes. Thursday, busy prosecutors in the turbulent SDNY office tried to stick a judicial shiv in Combs’ motion to suppress.
“The defendant fails to demonstrate that there were intentional misstatements or omissions in the Affidavits and that those misstatements or omissions were material,” they stated in heavily paperwork signed by current Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky.
“To the contrary, the defendant relies on rank, unsupported assumptions about the Government’s access to and knowledge of facts at particular points in time during its long-term investigation of the defendant’s crimes. Moreover, and fatal to his motion, the defendant makes no attempt to show that the affiant acted with the subjective intent to mislead the issuing magistrate judges or with reckless disregard for the truth.”
Outside of this criminal case, Combs is accused in more than 25 other cases of assault, abuse, rape and more, with even more allegations and filings coming in just the last week. Losing one of his key lawyers in the criminal case recently, Combs also on February 12, sued NBCUniversal for $100 million in a defamation action over what he calls out as “outrageous set of fresh lies and conspiracy theories” in the Peacock documentary Diddy: Making of a Bad Boy.
