The five accusations of rape and abuse that surround the musician Sean Combs

In April 2023, just a year ago, Sean Combs received dozens of music experts between cocktails and canapés at his home in Holmby Hills, one of the most exclusive areas of Los Angeles, between Bel-Air and Beverly Hills. There, surrounded by his pool and his million-dollar works of art, he hosted a party to present what was his latest album,

The Love Album: Off the Grid

, which was nominated for a Grammy. That same 1,600 square meter mansion that he bought a decade ago for $40 million was turned upside down on Monday, when dozens of Los Angeles police vehicles cordoned off it to allow a handful of federal agents from the US Department of Homeland Security to enter. They will enter it and even take some objects. On the other side of the country, in Miami, more police came to search another of his houses. Although the agents have not made it public, both

the Los Angeles Times

such as

The New York Times

assure that investigation sources have confirmed that the musician (formerly also known as Puff Daddy or Diddy) faces an investigation for sex trafficking in which minors are involved. He, for the moment, remains free without charges.

The 54-year-old musician and entrepreneur has been accused by four women and one man of sexual abuse, harassment, touching, rape and physical and verbal violence to varying degrees in just four months. Examples and comments about his aggressive attitude have multiplied in the industry, as have the voices of, above all, women who have stated that his behavior has been abusive and hostile for decades. And everything has been penetrating, drop by drop, until it reaches the American justice system, which is forming an increasingly tight fence around it. In the last 12 months, Combs has gone from an entrepreneur with an annual income of around $100 million, according to

Forbes

, named a Global Music Icon by MTV last September, to one of the most despised men on the scene. artistic and social of the USA.

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Sean Combs, sued by his ex-girlfriend, singer Cassie, for rape, abuse and mistreatment

Although the artist has a long history of accusations - especially for violence - for decades, the very harsh complaint filed last November by the singer and model Casandra Ventura, known as Cassie, his girlfriend on and off for 13 years (between 2005 and 2018), made everything explode. In it, Ventura explained that the musician had systematically raped and mistreated her during all those years, formally accusing him of rape, sexual abuse, sexual assault and sexual trafficking. The lawsuit tells how, between the ages of 19 and 33, Cassie experienced beatings, persecutions and aggression in all forms by Combs, who "had a tendency to attacks of uncontrollable anger, and frequently hit Ventura savagely." , which left her bruised and bloody “several times a year.” She tried to flee a hotel in California in 2016 and, upon noticing her, he followed her down the hallway, throwing glass vases at her, and then bought the security camera footage for $50,000. In addition, he forced her to take drugs such as ecstasy and ketamine, as well as to have relationships with prostitutes while he watched them and masturbated, recording them. As all of this occurred both in hotels and in his homes, spread throughout the country, in the lawsuit Combs was accused of sex trafficking, which is the crime on which the ongoing investigation is focused.

“Each time she hid, Combs's extensive network of affiliated companies and entities found her, and those who worked for her companies implored her to return to him,” the court brief read. “No one dared to raise their voice, frightened by their ferocious boss.” In the words of the plaintiff through her attorneys, the terror was palpable: “Ms. Ventura felt that saying no to Mr. Combs would cost her something: her family, her friends, his career and even her life.” ”. Combs denied everything. The day after Cassie's complaint, it was learned that the two had reached an out-of-court settlement.

Casandra Ventura and Sean Combs at the Metropolitan Museum Gala in New York held on May 7, 2018.John Shearer (Getty Images)

But Cassie opened the doors, even the floodgates, for what has come next. Just days after her lawsuit, another woman, Joi Dickerson-Neal, accused Combs of raping her in 1991, when she was a 19-year-old student, and of recording a video of the rape of her. A third woman, Liza Gardner, also claimed that he and another singer, Aaron Hall, sexually abused her and a friend in 1990. Another serious accusation came in early December, when an anonymous woman accused him (providing images and videos). of having gang raped her in 2003, when she was 17 years old. In the 14 pages of the complaint, she tells a story of pure terror: one night she meets Harve Pierre, president of Combs' record label, in a bar in Detroit, Michigan, and after an intense and quick connection they call the rapper on the phone. , who says he would love to meet her. Then Pierre forces her to smoke crack and abuses her in a bathroom, forcing her to perform oral sex on him, and then takes her on a private plane to New York to Combs' recording studio. There they force her to continue consuming drugs and alcohol and rape her between Combs (then 34 years old), Pierre and another man, before sending her on another plane back to Michigan in the morning.

If confirmed, this crime would be the most serious of all, since it would involve a minor and, in addition, would involve sexual trafficking, by transferring said minor from one State to another without her consent for sexual practices. This anonymous complaint, and those of Cassie, Gardner and Dickerson-Neal, were joined in February by a producer, Rodney Jones Jr., who accuses Combs of non-consensual touching, of walking naked in front of him and of pressuring him with violence and money. . “Combs constantly makes it very clear that he has immense power in the music industry and with law enforcement,” says Jones, who just this week reopened his lawsuit to include actor Cuba Gooding Jr., who has already been accused several times. times of sexual harassment. All of this has been the breeding ground with which the prosecutors of the southern district of Manhattan, according to

The New York Times

, have been investigating for months, interviewing witnesses and connecting the dots.

A 2003 photo that Sean Combs' anonymous plaintiff filed in her lawsuit against the musician in December 2023, showing her, then 17 years old and a minor, on the artist's lap.

At the moment, according to tabloid reports, Combs has been seen in Miami. It was there, in Florida, where his plane was detained on Monday about to leave for the Bahamas on a family trip, but the agents stopped it before taking off, seized several electronic devices and, when Combs cooperated with them, they let him go and take your passport. Two of his seven children were arrested during the investigation of the Los Angeles home, and were released shortly after. Only one man was arrested, Brendan Paul, 25, accused of being a drug runner for Combs. He was charged with possession of cocaine and other substances and was released on bail shortly after.

The musician's abusive behavior goes back a long way, and one of the founders of his record label Bad Boy Entertainment, Kirk Burrowes, whom he fired in 1997, declared these days in the

Los Angeles Times

that 25 years ago “he was already prone to violence”: “It's just that he wasn't that well known. It was like a part of his instruction manual. He traumatized women.” Burrowes sued him in 2003, alleging that in 1996 he threatened her with a baseball bat in a business dispute. In 1994, also according to Burrowes and as corroborated by another witness, Combs abused a woman at the Bad Boy Records offices and broke a glass table during the altercation. In 1999, the musician had already been arrested for confronting an executive from a rival record company, and he himself pleaded guilty to harassing him. In addition, at the end of that year he was charged with weapons possession when a gun was found in his car after a shooting that occurred in a New York club. They arrested him and his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Lopez. Already in 2015 he was arrested again for attacking the coach of one of his sons at a sports complex and threatening him with a weight. In 2017, one of her private cooks sued him for forcing her to work for 16 hours a day, as well as for forcing her to serve him food after he had sexual relations with women and while he was still naked; When she complained about it, he fired her. They reached an out-of-court agreement, the details of which were not known.

Los Angeles police officers block several streets in the Holmby Hills neighborhood during the search of Sean Combs' house, on March 25, 2024. CAROLINE BREHMAN (EFE)

Several legal experts say that, given the tough lawsuits he faces, the charges for all the accusations — which he has denied one after another, as the allegations emerged — could be very serious. His lawyer, Aaron Dyer, assures that the security department's intervention in their homes has been “a display of excessive force and hostility” and has gone so far as to describe it as a “witch hunt.”

The artist, who was one of the musicians who popularized hip hop as a genre and launched musicians like The Notorious BIG, Machine Gun Kelly, Janelle Monáe and recent Super Bowl star Usher to stardom, is now seeing how musicians like Kesha has removed her name from her song lyrics. It is known that rapper 50 Cent, one of his eternal enemies in the music scene, is already preparing a documentary about him and all the accusations.

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