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Charges against Sean “Diddy” Combs: Mogul allegedly runs sex crime empire
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Charges against Sean “Diddy” Combs: Mogul allegedly runs sex crime empire

How it happened: Sean “Diddy” Combs arrested and charged with sex trafficking.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs remains locked up after a judge on Wednesday rejected the hip-hop mogul’s proposal that he should Sex trafficking trial in the luxury of his villa in Florida instead of in a gloomy federal prison in Brooklyn.

U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter ruled that Combs’ plan – which included a $50 million bail offer, GPS monitoring and strict visitor restrictions – was “inadequate” to ensure the safety of the community and the integrity of his case.

Carter joined prosecutors fighting to keep Combs in prison, concluding that “no condition or set of conditions” for his release could protect him from the risk that he would threaten or harm witnesses – a central charge in his case.

Combs’ attorneys were making a second attempt in three days to free him from the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he has been held since he pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges that he physically and sexually abused women over a period of years.

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In this courtroom sketch, Sean Combs (center) is flanked by his defense attorney Marc Agnifilo (left) and Teny Garagos outside Manhattan federal court on Sept. 17, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

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U.S. Attorney Damian Williams speaks about the sex trafficking and organized crime charges against Sean “Diddy” Combs in New York on September 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

Combs has been in federal custody since his arrest Monday night at a Manhattan hotel. A federal judge denied Combs’ initial request for bail on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he and his lawyers argued with Carter, the judge who will preside over his trial.

Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo says he will now ask the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Carter’s conviction and release Combs. In the meantime, he wants to transfer Combs from the Brooklyn prison, which plagued by rampant violence and terrible conditions, to a prison in New Jersey. Carter said decisions about placement rest solely with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

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AP correspondent Julie Walker reports that Sean “Diddy” Combs is trying to get out of prison on bail after being charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy.

“I will not let him stay in prison a day longer than necessary,” Agnifilo told reporters outside the courtroom.

Combs looked at his family members and tapped his heart valve several times as the hearing began Wednesday. Then he sat stoically and listened to the arguments. Afterward, as federal agents led him away, his relatives hugged and clapped each other solemnly.

Combs, 54, is accused in an indictment the use of its “Power and Prestige” arrange female victims and male sex workers to elaborately staged, drugged sexual performances known as “freak offs” that Combs arranged, participated in, and often videotaped. The events sometimes lasted several days, and Combs and his victims were often given intravenous fluids to help them recover, the indictment says.

The accusation claims that Combs coerced and abused women for years with the help of a network of partners and associates, while using extortion and acts of violence such as kidnapping, arson and assault to prevent victims from speaking out.

Prosecutor Emily Johnson argued for Combs to be kept in prison, telling Carter that the once-celebrated rapper had a long history of intimidating both accusers and witnesses to his alleged abuse. She cited text messages from women who said Combs forced them to have “freak offs” and then threatened to release videos of them engaging in sexual acts.

Johnson said Combs’ defense team was “minimizing and terribly understating” Combs’ propensity for violence and criticized his attorney’s portrayal of an attack in a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 as a lovers’ quarrel. Surveillance video of the incident, which only came to light in May, showed Combs punching and kicking his then-girlfriend, who R&B singer Cassiein a hotel corridor.

“What does love have to do with it?” asked an incredulous Carter.

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FILE – Sean “Diddy” Combs appears at the premiere of “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story” on June 21, 2017 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

Johnson also referenced a text message from a woman who said Combs dragged her down a hallway by her hair. According to Johnson, the woman told the rapper, “I’m not a rag doll, I’m somebody’s child.”

“There is a long-standing pattern of abuse here,” Johnson said.

Combs’ Florida home is on Star Island, a man-made piece of land in Biscayne Bay near Miami Beach that is accessible only by causeway or boat. It is one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. Combs’ motion echoed that of a long line of wealthy defendants who have offered to post multimillion-dollar bail in exchange for House arrest in luxurious surroundings.

If Combs had been released on bail, he would have been required to stay in his home and limited visits to family, caretakers and friends who are not considered co-conspirators, his lawyers said. After prosecutors obtained a search warrant for Combs’ private security chief on Tuesday, his lawyers offered to hire a new firm to monitor him and make sure he complies with the proposed agreement.

Carter remained unmoved and questioned the plan as a “supposedly foolproof system”.

Many of the allegations in Combs’ indictment match those in a lawsuit filed in November by Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura. Combs settled the lawsuit the next day, but the allegations have dogged him ever since.

The AP does not typically name people who report sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly, like Ventura.

While Agnifilo did not mention Ventura by name, he was clearly referring to her. He argued that the entire criminal case was the result of a long-standing, difficult but consensual relationship that was disrupted by infidelity. The “freak offs,” he claimed, were an extension of that relationship, not coercion.

“Sex and violence were completely separate and had completely different motives,” Agnifilo said, claiming Combs and Cassie brought sex workers into their relationship because “this was the way these two adults wanted to be intimate.”

Prosecutors made the case more extensive. They said they had interviewed more than 50 victims and witnesses.

Like many aging hip-hop figures, Bad Boy Records founder Combs had built a softer public image for himself. The father of seven was a respected businessman whose annual “White Party” in the Hamptons was once a must-attend event for the jet-setting elite.

But prosecutors said he committed his crimes using the same companies, people and methods that brought him to power. They said they would prove the charges with financial and travel records, electronic communications data and videos of the “freak offs.”

In March invaded Combs’ Los Angeles and Florida Prosecutors said officers raided homes and seized drugs, videos and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant. They also seized guns and ammunition, including three AR-15s with obscured serial numbers.

If convicted on each of these charges, the sentence is 15 years in prison or possibly life imprisonment.

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This story has been edited to correct the spelling of Cassie’s legal first name: Casandra, not Cassandra.

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Dalton reported from Los Angeles.

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