A US lawyer has announced that more than 100 people will sue rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs for sexual assault, rape, and sexual exploitation.
According to Texas attorney Tony Buzbee, some of the alleged victims are minors who were abused as young as nine years old.
“This is an important matter that we intend to aggressively pursue,” Mr. Buzbee told reporters.
Erica Wolff, Mr Combs’ lawyer, stated that the rapper “emphatically and categorically” denies the allegations, calling them “false and defamatory”.
Mr. Buzbee stated that he and his team “will leave no stone unturned to find potentially liable parties” in the alleged abuse, as well as “any individual or entity who participated in or benefited from this egregious behaviour.”
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Ms Wolff told the BBC that Mr Combs “looks forward to proving his innocence and vindicating himself in court, where the truth will be established based on evidence, not speculation”.
This is the latest legal action taken against Mr. Combs.
Mr Combs was arrested last week and faces charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. He is currently in federal custody after being denied bail, and he is appealing.
He has denied all allegations of criminal wrongdoing.
According to Mr Buzbee, who is licensed to practice law in Texas and New York, he is representing 120 alleged victims, half of whom are men and the other half women from more than 25 states across the United States.
He added that 25 of the alleged victims he represents are minors. This is the first time Mr Combs has been accused of sexually abusing children.
Mr Buzbee stated that the allegations date back to 1991 and continue to this year, with incidents occurring in Los Angeles, New York, and Miami. He added that the majority of the incidents occurred after 2015.
The majority of the plaintiffs, he said, claim they were date raped after parties hosted by Mr Combs at well-known venues, private residences, and hotels.
Mr Buzbee stated that the parties were either to commemorate an album release or were New Year’s Eve and US Independence Day celebrations. Others occurred at what he described as auditions.
“Many times, especially young people wanting to break into the industry, were coerced into this type of conduct in the promise of being made a star or the promise of having Sean Combs listen to their tape,” Mr. Buzbee claimed.
According to his lawyer, one man, who was nine years old at the time, alleges that Mr Combs and his associates sexually abused him at a recording studio in New York while attempting to land a record deal.
“If he hadn’t been in power, I believe I could have achieved great things. “I quit the industry because of what Sean Combs did to me,” he said in a statement released through his lawyer.
Another man, who was also a minor at the time, claimed Mr Combs told him he would be made a “star” if he visited the rapper alone without his parents.
His lawyer claimed that once in a private area, Mr Combs asked the boy to perform oral sex on him.
Mr Buzbee also brought up the case of a then-15-year-old girl who claims she was flown to New York for a party hosted by Mr Combs and later raped by him and others.
The lawyer claimed there was a clear pattern, with alleged victims typically being offered “laced” drinks before being sexually assaulted.
“The biggest secret in the entertainment industry has finally been revealed to the world,” says Mr. Buzbee. “The wall of silence has now been broken.”
He clarified that this is not a class action lawsuit and that individual cases will be filed for each alleged victim.
Andrew Van Arsdale, an attorney at the AVA law group, which is representing Mr Buzbee, stated that his firm had received over 3,000 phone calls from people alleging abuse by the music mogul.
In addition to the 120 alleged victims, he stated that his firm was working to vet another 100 cases.
