Hip-hop mogul and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested Monday night and indicted on federal charges of sex trafficking and racketeering over a period of nearly two decades, according to federal documents unsealed on Tuesday.
The 14-page indictment alleges that Combs “abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct,“ the indictment read.
The indictment states the Grammy Award-winning Combs had, since at least 2008, “relied on the employees, resources, and influence of the multi-faced business empire that he led and controlled” to hide his actions, creating a “criminal enterprise whose members and associates engaged in and attempted to engage in, among other crimes, sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.”
Combs lawyer Marc Agnifilo said the entertainer will plead not guilty, according to published reports.
The indictment comes six months after federal agents raided Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami as part of a federal investigation, and three months after Combs was seen in a 2016 surveillance video assaulting his then-girlfriend Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel, for which Combs apologized.
In June, Combs sold his majority stake in the Revolt television network, which he founded in 2013 as one of four minority owned-and-operated channels launched in 2012 by Comcast as part of its acquisition of NBCUniversal.
