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Michael_Novakhov shared this story from  Entertainment – Metro.
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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been charged with a new federal indictment weeks before his trial is due to start.
The US rapper was hit with five new criminal counts, including racketeering and sex trafficking, according to court records.
Previous accusations include sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
He was already charged with three criminal counts, which he denies, and earlier this month pleaded not guilty to new indictments.
Combs’ trial is set for May 5 in Manhattan and is currently behind bars, having been taken into custody in September 2024.
If found guilty, the mandatory minimum sentence he could face for the charges is 15 years, with a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Since his arrest, Combs has been denied bail multiple times after the US Magistrate Judge Robyn F Tarnofsky said she had ‘very significant concerns’.
When he put in his ‘not guilty’ plea, his legal team are said to have offered a $50million (£37.8million) package to secure his release on bail.
The judge, according to AP, voiced concerns over his alleged substance abuse and ‘what appears to be anger issues.’
Alternatives to denying him bail were considered but she didn’t think they were sufficient because many of the allegations happened behind closed doors.
An estimated 60 civil lawsuits have also been filed against Combs, including a $10million (£7.85million) lawsuit after allegedly dangling a woman from a 17th-floor balcony.
One case, filed in January by an anonymous woman, claimed she was lured into his car after babysitting and assaulted by Combs.
The alleged victim said she went into his car ‘after much cajoling’, where two of his associates were also sat, and was given a drink to ‘calm her down’ — rapidly becoming groggy.
She claims Combs then sexually assaulted her before the two other men dropped her home.
Another case was put forward by an unnamed man who claimed Combs sexually assaulted him at a hotel in New York in 2005, when he was aged just 10, during an ‘audition’.
A different lawsuit from October 2024, via CNN, alleges that ‘Combs asked Plaintiff hypothetical questions about handling situations involving sexual pressure’, during a one-on-one interview on the first day of reality show Making the Band.
Another report stated that five civil lawsuits were filed at once, including a claim that he raped and drugged one female plaintiff when she was 13 years old.
One woman has come forward alleging that he violently raped her in 2001, alongside his head of security, Joseph Sherman.
She said after being invited to meet Combs, while dating one of his employees, she was given a drink ‘likely laced with a drug’ and lost consciousness.
Waving her anonymity, Thalia Graves claimed that she later woke up restrained, when they sexually abused and violated her, ‘mercilessly raping her anally and vaginally’.
Other accusations stem from his so-called ‘Freak-Off’ parties, with documents and videos reportedly seen by the New York Post said to show Combs held at least three of these raucous sex parties.
The federal indictment was unsealed and includes allegations that Combs coerced multiple alleged victims into sex acts, known as ‘freak offs’.
He allegedly organised and directed the ‘freak offs’, and is accused of ‘directing, masturbating during, and often electronically recording’ them.
Over 100 people are said to be planning to sue Combs in allegations from unnamed accusers who were as young as 9 at the time.
The timeline of accusations against the rapper is extensive, with previous allegations and court cases stretching back to the 90s.
Combs has denied all allegations against him.
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