Authorities arrested music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs in New York City on Monday following a grand jury for crimes not yet specified.
The U.S.Attorney for the Southern District of New York confirmed federal agents arrested Combs.
Marc Agnifilo, attorney for Mr. Combs, told The Hollywood Reporter after the arrest that his client fell victim to an “unjust prosecution.”
“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Marc Agnifilo, Combs’ attorney, told THR. “Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community.”
“He is an imperfect person but he Is not a criminal. 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,” continued Agnifilo.
In March, Homeland Security officials raided the mogul’s residences in connection to a sex trafficking investigation. The raid occurred at the music mogul’s mansion in the Holmby Hills neighborhood. Diddy has denied all wrongdoing, saying in a statement through his lawyer that the raids were a “gross overuse of military-level force.”
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the alleged parties, a.k.a. “Freak-Offs” or “F.O.s,” occurred at some of the swankiest hotels in Miami, Atlanta, New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. “Sex parties so brutal that the young women and men lured into attending them would often vomit and pass out from being drugged, beaten and raped, sometimes for hours on end,” the outlet described them as.
Combs allegedly filmed these “Freak-Offs” and even “directed his staff to change the lighting or bedding to better display the women and men who performed for him sexually.”
Diddy later issued an apology over a surveillance video of him violently beating his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in hotel hallway back in 2016.
Just last week, Diddy’s former bandmate Dawn Richard filed a new sexual assault lawsuit, which “included claims of battery, false imprisonment, withholding millions of dollars in unpaid royalties and wages, as well as stealing her copyrighted works,” per THR.
In May, model Crystal McKinney filed a lawsuit against Combs for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting her 20 years ago.