In a lawsuit filed in New York on Thursday, three men accused hip-hop entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs of raping and drugging them.
The rapper, producer, and record executive is also facing federal sex trafficking accusations in New York, on top of a slew of sexual assault complaints against him that were filed anonymously in a state court.
New York lawyer Thomas Giuffra, who filed the claims on the men’s behalf on Thursday, claimed that Combs exploited the accusers by abusing his riches and influence, then used intimidation and threats to keep them silent.
“This is a long overdue opportunity for the victims to take the power back after carrying the burden of the assaults in silence for several years,” he said in a statement. “While a lawsuit will not undo the wrongs done to them, it enables the survivors to regain the power and dignity that was stripped from them by Sean Combs.”
“These complaints are full of lies,” the lawyers wrote in a statement, declining to elaborate. “We will prove them false and seek sanctions against every unethical lawyer who filed fictional claims against him.”
The occurrences covered by the lawsuits occurred between 2019 and 2022. The men, who are all named as John Doe, claim that Combs and others sexually attacked them after inadvertently giving them drugged beverages.
In 2020, one of the men claims he met Combs at his suite at the InterContinental hotel in Times Square to discuss payments he owed the businessman as a long-time employee.
Another claims he met Combs at a nightclub in Manhattan in 2019 and was invited to an afterparty at Combs’ suite at the Park Hyatt hotel, where he was also drugged and raped. He attempted to resist until the drugged drink rendered him unconscious, and he was given $2,500 following the attack by a man who had been filming the bedroom assault. Both men are seeking a jury trial and an unspecified damages from Combs.
The third individual alleges that during a summer party at Combs’ East Hampton, New York, mansion in 2020, he was drugged and sexually assaulted by Combs and associates from his record label.
Combs has entered a not guilty plea to federal charges alleging that he utilised a network of associates and employees to organise elaborately planned, drug-fueled sex shows known as “Freak Offs” with male sex workers, coercing and abusing women for years. Then, according to the prosecution, he used violence, including physical beatings, fire, and blackmail, to quiet his victims. Combs is still being held in a federal jail in Brooklyn after being denied bail for the third time last month. Combs has been requesting to be released until his trial in May.