Six additional sexual assault lawsuits were filed against music impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs on Monday afternoon, alleging attacks that took place at industry events, after-parties and Combs’s famous White Parties. The attacks are alleged to have taken place between 1995 and 2021.
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All six lawsuits were filed anonymously in federal court in the Southern District of New York by four men and two women, and include a plaintiff who was 16 at the time of the alleged assault.
Along with Combs and his various businesses, Macy’s department store and the hotel chain Marriott have been named as co-defendants. Macy’s and Marriott did not immediately respond to The Washington Post’s requests for comment.
Representatives for Combs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuits are part of a deluge of complaints announced by a team of lawyers, including Tony Buzbee of the Buzbee Law Firm, Andrew Van Arsdale of AVA Law Group and Antigone Curis of Curis Law.
“We expect to be filing many more cases over the next several weeks naming Mr. Combs and others as defendants,” Buzbee said in a statement.
Two of the men who filed lawsuits Monday have accused Combs of assaulting them at his White Party, a star-studded event that was regularly held at Combs’s home in the Hamptons. They include a 16-year-old boy who alleges that at a 1998 White Party, Combs told him to drop his pants and then proceeded to fondle his genitals. According to the lawsuit, the teen was trying to break into the music industry at the time; Combs allegedly persuaded the boy to take off his pants by saying it was a rite of passage.
Another man who claims to have been assaulted at a White Party was working a last-minute security job for the event, according to court documents. He alleges that in 2006, he was given a drink laced with narcotics. He felt “extremely ill” after drinking the beverage, after which Combs allegedly pushed him into an open van, overpowered him and raped him, the filing states.
One woman accused Combs of raping her in 2004, after they met at a photo shoot for Da Band, a hip-hop group Combs formed on the reality TV show, “Making the Band.” She alleges that Combs invited her and a friend to an “exclusive” after-party, held in a hotel suite at the Marriott International. According to the filing, she and her friend were ushered by a Combs staffer to a side room once they arrived. (When asked why they were being taken to the room, the staffer allegedly told the women, “You know what you are here for,” the lawsuit claims.) Once in the room, Combs is alleged to have “fondled, molested and ultimately raped” the woman, who was 19 at the time.
Another anonymous woman accused Combs of striking and raping her in the bathroom at a 1995 party celebrating the Notorious B.I.G.’s “One More Chance” music video at Elks Plaza in New York City.
One assault is alleged to have happened at Macy’s flagship department store in Manhattan in 2008. Combs was there to promote his clothing brand Sean John, the lawsuit says, while the alleged victim worked for a rival clothing brand, Ecko. Combs is alleged to have confronted the man in a stockroom, accompanied by three armed bodyguards. The guards stood by as Combs forced the alleged victim to perform oral sex on him, the filing claims.
The most recent assault is said to have happened in 2021 at another Combs party. The alleged victim, a man, was a consultant with connections to the music industry, according to the suit. The lawsuit alleges that he had one drink that immediately left him disoriented. While incapacitated, he was taken to a backroom where he was raped by multiple men, including Combs, the filing alleges.
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs announced earlier this month that they would be filing more than 100 lawsuits against Combs in New York, California and Florida, of which these are the first.
The lawyers said the ages of the accusers ranged in age from 9 to 38 at the time of the alleged attacks.
Erica Wolff, an attorney for Combs, denied the allegations after the Oct. 1 news conference, saying the music mogul “cannot address every meritless allegation in what has become a reckless media circus. ... He looks forward to proving his innocence and vindicating himself in court, where the truth will be established based on evidence, not speculation.”
Buzbee and Van Arsdale have represented victims of sexual assault in other high-profile cases. Van Arsdale represented hundreds of victims in a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America. Buzbee represented more than a dozen women who accused quarterback Deshaun Watson of sexual assault. (Many of those cases were settled.)
As the accusations pile up against Combs, who has denied all allegations of sexual abuse, the mogul remains in federal custody in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center since his arrest last month on sex trafficking and racketeering charges. He has been accused of running a criminal enterprise to sexually abuse and exploit women, among other crimes. Combs has pleaded not guilty and appealed multiple times to be released on bail. A Manhattan judge set a trial date for the case for May 5.
