9 hours ago
6
Sean “Diddy” Combs was hit with a new federal indictment on Friday charging the hip-hop mogul with five criminal counts including racketeering and sex trafficking, court records showed.
Combs had previously faced three criminal counts, to which he has pleaded not guilty and is in federal jail in Brooklyn awaiting trial in Manhattan federal court on 5 May.
The two additional charges expand on allegations that Combs, 55, engaged in sex trafficking as recently as last year.
A superseding indictment filed on Friday in New York accuses Combs of using force, fraud or coercion to compel a woman to engage in commercial sex acts from at least 2021 to 2024.
The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Manhattan, also alleges Combs was involved in transporting the woman – identified only as Victim-2 – and other people, including commercial sex workers, to engage in prostitution during the same time frame.
His arraignment has not been scheduled to be formally presented with the additional charges at a court appearance and have a chance to enter a plea.
Combs previously pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. While the new indictment added no new charges, it described what prosecutors called the “forced labor” that Combs demanded in connection with the 20-year alleged racketeering conspiracy.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan US attorney’s office have previously said Combs used his business empire, including his record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, to sexually abuse women between 2004 and 2024.
Combs’s alleged abuse included having women take part in recorded sexual performances called “freak offs” with male sex workers, who were sometimes transported across state lines.
Marc Agnifilo, Combs’s attorney, has said the freak offs were consensual sexual activity.
Combs also faces dozens of civil lawsuits by women and men who accused him of sexual assault and other misconduct. He has denied all wrongdoing.
Central to the case is a March 2016 video showing Combs hitting and kicking his then girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie Ventura, in a Los Angeles hotel hallway. Prosecutors contend the assault happened during a so-called freak off. Combs’s lawyers argue the footage was nothing more than a “glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship” between the two.
Combs’s lawyers contend the case should never have been brought and are fighting to dismiss a charge involving allegations he transported a male escort across state lines.
Reuters contributed reporting
