Sean 'Diddy' Combs accused in gang-rape of teenager in New York
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[December 07, 2023]
By Steve Gorman
(Reuters) - Hip-hop star Sean "Diddy" Combs was accused in federal court
on Wednesday of taking part in the gang rape of a 17-year-old girl in
his Manhattan recording studio in 2003, marking the fourth lawsuit
leveling sexual assault allegations against him in recent weeks.
Combs, 54, founder of the landmark label Bad Boy Records and a hugely
successful rap performer, issued a statement on Wednesday categorically
professing his innocence and declaring his accusers were "looking for a
quick payday."
The plaintiff in the latest lawsuit was identified as Jane Doe,
described as a high school student at the time she met associates of
Combs in a Detroit-area lounge 20 years ago.
The complaint says they flew her on a private jet from Michigan to the
New York area, then drove her to the New York City studio where Combs
and two other men plied her with drugs and alcohol.
According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff was then raped in a bathroom of
the studio by Combs and the two other men, one after the other, as she
slipped in and out of consciousness. It said Combs also watched one of
the other assaults after he was finished.
She was later flown back to Michigan but had little recollection of her
return trip to the Detroit suburbs, the lawsuit says.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/May/02/images/ads/current/guzzardo_lda022609.png)
As evidence to support her allegations, the lawsuit includes several
photos allegedly depicting the accuser - her face intentionally blurred
- posing inside Combs' studio, including one in which she appears to be
sitting on Combs lap, both of them facing the camera.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, said the
plaintiff has since suffered "extreme emotional distress that has
impacted nearly every aspect of her life and personal relationships."
The lawsuit was filed under New York City's Victims of Gender-Motivated
Violence Protection Law, which was extended to allow accusers to sue
over alleged offenses from long ago, even if statutes of limitations
have expired.
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![](../images/120723PIX/ent_d.28.jpg)
Sean "Diddy" Combs performs at the BET Awards 2022 at the Microsoft
Theater in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 26, 2022.
REUTERS/David Swanson/ File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Dec/07/images/ads/current/graue_lda_preowned_120423.jpg) Combs' latest accuser said she chose
to come forward after reading news accounts of the lawsuit brought
against Combs last month by his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, who
performs under the stage name Cassie, accusing him of subjecting her
to physical abuse, sex trafficking and rape over the course of a
decade.
Ventura and Combs, who has formerly gone by such monikers as P.
Diddy," Puff Daddy and Diddy, announced the next day they had
settled the case under confidential terms.
Combs' lawyer, Ben Brafman, said then that the settlement was "in no
way an admission of wrongdoing," and that his client maintained his
"flat-out denial" of Ventura's claims.
But Combs was hit with two more lawsuits in a matter of days - one
by a plaintiff named Joi Dickerson-Neal, who accused the rap mogul
of drugging and sexually assaulting her while she was a student at
Syracuse University in 1991. Another "Jane Doe" complaint accused
him of forcing her and a friend into nonconsensual sex in the early
1990s.
He has denied those allegations.
"For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched
people try to assassinate my character," he wrote in his social
media post on Wednesday. "Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do
any of the awful things being alleged."
One of the two other men alleged to have raped the plaintiff in
Wednesday's lawsuit was named in the complaint as Harve Pierre, a
former top executive at Bad Boy. The third man was identified in the
complaint only as the "Third Assailant."
Pierre himself was accused in a separate lawsuit last month of using
his position of authority at Bad Boy to groom and sexually assault a
former assistant.
Neither Pierre nor any representatives could be reached for comment.
A spokesperson for Bad Boy told People magazine last month the
record label was "investigating the allegations."
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles)
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