Diddy hit with more lawsuits, 3 men say they were drugged, sexually assaulted
Three men sued Sean “Diddy” Combs in New York on Thursday, claiming the hip-hop mogul drugged and raped them.
The lawsuits, which were filed anonymously in a state court, add to a wave of sexual assault litigation against the rapper, producer and record executive as he also faces federal sex trafficking charges in New York.
Thomas Giuffra, a New York attorney who filed Thursday’s lawsuits on the men’s behalf, said Combs used his power and wealth to take advantage of the accusers and then ensured their silence through threats and fear.
“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.”
Lawyers for Combs, 55-year-old founder of Bad Boy Records, said the claims are baseless.
“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 lawsuits involve incidents taking place from 2019 to 2022. The men, all identified as John Doe, say they were unwittingly served drugged drinks and then sexually assaulted by Combs and others.
They each seek a jury trial and to be awarded unspecified damages from Combs.
One of the men claims Combs drugged and raped him in 2020 when the two met at Combs’ suite at the InterContinental hotel in Times Square to discuss payments the man was owed as a longtime employee of the entrepreneur.
Another claims he met Combs in 2019 at a Manhattan nightclub and was invited to an afterparty at Combs’ suite at the Park Hyatt hotel, where he was also drugged and raped.
The man said he tried to resist before the drugged drink left him unconscious. He also said he was given $2,500 after the attack by a man who had been recording the bedroom assault.
The third man claims he was drugged and raped by Combs and associates from his record label during a summertime party in 2020 at Combs’ mansion in East Hampton, New York.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he coerced and abused women for years, using a network of associates and employees to hold drug-fuelled, elaborately produced sexual performances known as “Freak Offs” involving male sex workers.
Prosecutors say he then silenced his victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
Combs has been seeking to be released until his trial in May but was denied bail a third time last month and remains in a federal jail in Brooklyn.
French court sentences three professional rugby players to 12 to 14 years in jail for gang rape
Three professional rugby players who participated in or witnessed the sexual assault of a student, identified only as V., in a hotel on the outskirts of Bordeaux in 2017 were on Friday given jail terms ranging from 12 to 14 years.
A court in France on Friday jailed three rugby players formerly with French side Grenoble for 12 to 14 years over the 2017 gang rape of a student.
It sentenced Irishman Denis Coulson, 30, and Frenchman Loick Jammes, 30, to 14 years behind bars, and New Zealander Rory Grice, 34, to 12 years in jail.
It handed four years in jail, including two suspended, to ex-Ireland international 31-year-old Chris Farrel over failure to prevent the crime.
New Zealander Dylan Hayes, 30, received a two-year suspended sentence, also for not intervening to stop it.
In the small hours of March 12, 2017, the student, identified only as V., was in tears as she left a hotel on the outskirts of Bordeaux, where the Grenoble team spent the night after losing a Top 14 encounter against local side Bordeaux-Begles.
V. filed a complaint with police, saying she had met the players in a bar together with two friends and accompanied them to a nightclub where all of them drank heavily.
The student said she had no recollection of how she got from the club to the hotel where she woke up, naked on a bed and with a crutch inserted in her vagina.
She saw two naked men in the room and others fully dressed.
Coulson, Jammes and Grice stated they had sexual relations with V. but claimed the encounter was consensual and the student had been pro-active in bringing it about.
Farrell, owner of the crutch, was present, as was Hayes.
(AFP)
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