Diddy Arrested at Swanky NYC Hotel After Grand Jury Indictment
Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested in Manhattan on Monday evening after a grand jury handed down an indictment.
He was taken into federal custody around 9 p.m. local time in the lobby of the Park Hyatt Hotel, according to the New York Post. The newspaper reported that Combs had traveled to New York in anticipation of his arrest.
The charges in the indictment remained sealed on Monday night. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a statement that prosecutors were expected to move to unseal the indictment in the morning.
The hip-hop tycoon’s arrest was first reported by The New York Times.
Combs, 54, has been the subject of mounting allegations of abuse, sexual violence, and sex trafficking which started last November with a lawsuit filed by ‘Me & U’ singer Cassie Ventura, his ex-girlfriend.
Though Combs quietly settled the suit with Ventura a day after it was filed, the floodgates had been opened: at least seven more women and two men would subsequently come forward with civil claims of their own against the Bad Boy Records founder.
In March, federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations raided Combs’ Miami and Los Angeles homes. Few details were shared at the time, but reports circulated that investigators were conducting a sex trafficking probe.
Federal prosecutors in New York began interviewing witnesses about Combs’ alleged criminal activity around that time.
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Combs’ attorney, Marc Agnifilo, told TMZ in a statement on Monday that they were “disappointed” with “the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution” of the rapper.
“He is an imperfect person but is not criminal,” Agnifilo continued. “To his credit Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges.
“Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”
Combs has repeatedly and vehemently denied wrongdoing, decrying his accusers as shakedown artists looking to make a quick buck.
Combs’ most recent accuser, Dawn Richard, a former member of the girl group Danity Kane, sued him just last week.
She accused him of sexual and verbal assault over a period of nearly 10 years, as well as “withholding her rightful earnings, stealing her copyrighted works, and subjecting her to years of inhumane working conditions which included groping, assault, and false imprisonment."
Homeland Security Investigation agents are seen at the entrance of Sean "Diddy" Combs' Florida home.
Richard also said that she’d also witnessed Combs physically abusing a number of women, including Ventura.
“Over the decades following his rise to fame, Mr. Combs’ star-studded, larger-than-life persona overshadowed his vicious temper and pervasive acts of violence directed towards those in his inner circle—specifically, women,” her complaint stated.
Days after Ventura filed her original lawsuit last November, two more women, Liza Gardner and Joi Dickerson-Neal, came forward separately to accuse Combs of sexual assault. Gardner’s complaint alleged that Combs and a friend “violently and statutorily raped” her when she was 16 years old.
A fourth woman, a Jane Doe, alleged in a December lawsuit that she had been 17 when Combs and his inner circle trafficked her from Michigan to New York City and gang-raped her.
Combs addressed the mounting allegations for the first time that month. “Enough is enough. I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy,” he said.
“Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged."
Left: Sean "Diddy" Combs and Cassie Ventura arrive at a Miami party in 2017. (Getty Images) Right: Surveillance video of Combs attacking Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. (CNN)
In February, music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones filed a sexual assault, trafficking, and racketeering lawsuit against Combs in federal court. Jones accused the mogul of groping him, secretly drugging him, and forcing him to solicit sex workers as the two worked on his Grammy-nominated album throughout 2022 and 2023.
“He’s a monster,” Jones told Rolling Stone late last month. “He’ll do whatever is necessary to get exactly what he wants. He doesn’t take no for an answer.”
Another woman, Grace O’Marcaigh, sued him in April, while two more, Crystal McKinney and April Lampros, filed separate complaints in May.
“I’m confident that justice will prevail and the veil will be removed, so that no other woman will have to endure what I did,” Lampros told the Daily Beast through her lawyer at the time.
The week before Lampros filed her complaint, CNN published surveillance footage showing Combs assaulting Ventura in a hotel room hallway in 2016. Combs issued an apology, saying he was “truly sorry” for his “inexcusable” behavior in the video.
Diddy posts up on a bench in London.
“I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now,” he said.
In her own response to the video several days later, Ventura urged the public to believe victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault.
“It takes a lot of heart to tell the truth out of a situation that you were powerless in,” she wrote. “I offer my hand to those that are still living in fear. Reach out to your people, don’t cut them off. No one should carry this weight alone.”
In June, Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, a Michigan prison inmate, accused Combs of drugging and sexually assaulting him at a party in 1997. Sentenced to up to 75 years for first-degree criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping in unrelated cases, Cardello-Smith’s claims were dismissed as “frivolous” by Combs’ lawyers, who insisted the two men had never met.
But Cardello-Smith was awarded $100 million in a default judgment earlier this month after Combs failed to show up in court or file any response to his claims. The rapper was ordered by a judge to pay $10 million each month beginning Oct. 1 for 10 months.
It marked the first sexual assault judgment against Combs since his legal troubles began with Ventura’s lawsuit. Combs’ lawyers vowed to fight the ruling.
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