NEW YORK (AP) — A woman sued the hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday, claiming he and two other men raped her 20 years ago in a New York City recording studio when she was 17.
FILE – Music mogul and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs arrives at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas, May 15, 2022. Combs, was accused in a lawsuit Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023, of subjecting R&B singer Cassie to abuse in a years-long relationship. Cassie, whose legal Casandra Ventura, alleged in the suit filed against the producer and music mogul in New York federal court. Combs’ lawyer denies the allegations. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
The woman, whose name wasn’t disclosed in the court filing, is the fourth person to file a lawsuit accusing Combs of sexual assault in recent weeks.
The lawsuit alleges that Combs, Harve Pierre, the former president of Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment, and an unnamed man gave the accuser drugs and alcohol and then took turns raping her inside Daddy’s House Recording Studio, a studio owned by Combs and Bad Boy, in 2003.
Combs, 54, denied the allegations in a statement. A request for comment from Pierre was sent to Bad Boy Entertainment.
According to the lawsuit, Pierre met the teenager in Michigan and flew with her on a private plane to meet Combs.
“As alleged in the complaint, Defendants preyed on a vulnerable high school teenager as part of a sex trafficking scheme that involved plying her with drugs and alcohol and transporting her by private jet to New York City where she was gang raped by the three individual defendants at Mr. Combs’ studio,” the accuser’s attorney, Douglas Wigdor, said in a statement. “The depravity of these abhorrent acts has, not surprisingly, scarred our client for life.”
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The accuser’s lawyers say the claim was brought under New York City’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, which allows accusers to file civil complaints involving sexual assault claims after the statute of limitations has run out.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan follows three other lawsuits accusing Combs of abuse.
A lawsuit by the singer Cassie containing allegations of beatings and abuse by Combs was settled on Nov. 17, the day after it was filed. A lawyer for Combs said before the settlement that Combs denied the allegations.
Two additional lawsuits against Combs were filed a week later.
One of the accusers, Joi Dickerson, said she was a 19-year-old college student when she agreed to meet Combs at a restaurant in Harlem in 1991. After their date, Combs “intentionally drugged” her, then brought her home and sexually assaulted her, according to the filing.
A separate lawsuit filed by an unnamed woman accused Combs and another man of sexually assaulting her and a friend, then beating her several days later.
“For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy,” Combs, who is also known as Diddy or Puff Daddy, said in a statement Wednesday. “Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
