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      Sean Combs Will Try Another Appeal of Judge’s Decision to Deny Bail

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      Mr. Combs is in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial on federal charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.The music mogul Sean Combs has given notice that he will file a second appeal of a judge’s order that denied him bail and sent him to a Brooklyn jail while he awaits trial on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.In a brief form filed with federal court in Manhattan, lawyers for Mr. Combs indicated that they would be appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr. had denied Mr. Combs’s first appeal of a federal judge’s order that he be held in the detention facility until trial.Attorneys for Mr. Combs did not immediately respond to a request for further information about his appeal.As recently as last week, Mr. Combs’s lawyers had informed Judge Carter that they did not, at that point, intend to ask for Mr. Combs to be moved from the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal facility in Brooklyn.The M.D.C., as that facility is known, has been harshly criticized by lawyers and advocates for what they say are poor conditions and chronic understaffing. But in a statement last week, Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, spoke positively about the facility, saying the “dedicated professionals at the M.D.C. are doing everything possible to help him and his lawyers prepare his defense, and I personally thank them.”“I can’t say enough good things about the M.D.C.,” Mr. Agnifilo added, “which has been responsive to our and his needs.”In arguing for Mr. Combs’s release on bail, his lawyers have suggested a variety of measures to ensure he would not flee before trial, including offering to post a $50 million bond as security if he were released. They have emphasized that their client has been cooperating with the prosecutors’ investigation for months, and that he had taken steps to fund the bond offer. Under an unusual proposal, which a federal judge rejected, Mr. Combs would have agreed to remain at his mansion in Florida, monitored around the clock by a private security force.But prosecutors have fought to keep Mr. Combs behind bars, citing concerns that he will tamper with witnesses if given the opportunity and that he is prone to violence. Judges have so far sided with the government, leaving him in the same unit of M.D.C. as Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto mogul convicted of fraud. More

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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Parties, in His Own Words

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      For decades, Combs and other celebrities have commented on his party lifestyle. Here’s some of what they have publicly said.In 2005, when Sean Combs — also known as Diddy or Puff Daddy — hosted the MTV Video Music Awards, the network advertised the broadcast with a playful star-studded spoof called “Diddy Parties,” in which the events he hosted were referred to as “hedonistic romps.”It’s one of many examples that illustrate how the powerful music mogul’s reputation for hard-partying was an accepted part of the pop culture discourse. But since Combs’s arrest on charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking this month, the lifestyle at the center of the criminal case has taken on a different light.Those who attended his events — whether his glitzy, A-list “white parties” or the “freak-offs” described in the indictment against him — have largely refrained from discussing their experiences in recent weeks. That hasn’t always been the case. In years past, celebrities have openly talked about his public-facing bashes and his general party habits.Here is some of what Combs and other stars have said about his party orbit.In His WordsIn a 1999 interview with Entertainment Tonight, in response to an interviewer who said, “Your parties are the hottest ticket around,” Combs said, “They won’t even give me a permit for the parties no more.”“They don’t want me to throw the parties no more, but we ain’t going to stop, we going to keep on having fun, bringing people together from all walks of life,” he continued. “You’re going to hear about my parties, they’re going to be shutting them down, they going to probably be arresting me, doing all types of crazy things just because we want to have a good time. Whenever you bring up a different element into people’s environment, things that broaden people’s horizons, people get intimidated.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean Combs’s White Parties Were Edgy, A-List Affairs. Were They More?

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      The events helped the music mogul raise his profile. But one woman who worked at them has said in court papers that the parties had a dark side, too.In the 2000s, few events held the cultural cachet of the White Party thrown by Sean Combs — fetes in Beverly Hills, the Hamptons and other playgrounds of the rich, studded with famous names and fabulous tableaus.At the 2009 party, Demi Moore made the scene with Lil’ Kim, dancers gyrated in giant plastic balloons alongside tottering stilt walkers, and Ashton Kutcher swung, Tarzan-like, across a swimming pool as models in white bikinis lounged beside it.And at the center of it all was Mr. Combs, the billionaire hip-hop mogul also known as Puff Daddy and Diddy, invariably toasting the scene with a glass of Cîroc vodka, and welcoming comparisons of his revels to those of lore.“Have I read ‘The Great Gatsby?’” Mr. Combs once told The Independent. “I am the Great Gatsby!”Today, Mr. Combs’s fortunes again invite comparison to Gatsby, though now through scandal. Prosecutors say Mr. Combs enlisted employees, enablers and prostitutes to stage far darker soirees than White Parties called “freak-offs” — drug-heavy, sometimes days-long hotel parties during which investigators say he abused and coerced participants into sexual acts, which he sometimes filmed and masturbated to.The criminal indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court this month has invited something of a reappraisal of the White Parties for some of those who reveled or worked at them. Were they merely innocuous, press-conscious branding events at which to see and be seen? Or was there, beyond the all-white facade, a darker element?Indeed, a recent lawsuit claims misdeeds occurred at those events, too: In July, Adria English, who was hired by Mr. Combs to work a series of White Parties in the mid-to-late 2000s, sued him, asserting she was plied with drugs and ecstasy-laced liquor at the events, and commanded to have sex with certain guests, making her into “a sexual pawn.” Jonathan Davis, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, denied in July that his client had ever “sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      With Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs in Jail, He Faces Another Lawsuit

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      The latest lawsuit includes accusations of drugging and coerced sex as recently as this year. Mr. Combs’s lawyers have said the claims are attempts to obtain quick settlements.A woman filed a lawsuit against the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs on Friday alleging that he repeatedly coerced her into forced sexual encounters over a period of several years, in part by compelling her to take drugs that caused her to fall unconscious.The suit, which was brought in state court in New York by an anonymous plaintiff who describes herself as a business owner and a model, recalls a relationship that continued on and off between 2021 and this year, in which Mr. Combs and his employees would arrange for her to travel to his homes.“Combs would make her ‘perform a show’ for him and would ply her with alcohol and substances until she passed out — she would wake up with bruising and injuries but with no recollection of how she sustained her injuries,” the lawsuit says.Representatives for Mr. Combs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The latest complaint against Mr. Combs comes as he faces federal racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges; he has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers have adamantly denied the charges, accusing prosecutors of manipulating sexual encounters between consenting adults into a sex trafficking case.As he awaits trial, detained in a Brooklyn jail, the civil suits against Mr. Combs have continued to grow. The lawsuit is the eighth filed over the past year by a woman accusing him of sexual assault; three other lawsuits have made allegations of sexual misconduct. Mr. Combs’s lawyers have been seeking dismissals of the other suits in court and have described them as false claims cobbled together to try to secure a financial settlement from Mr. Combs.The newest lawsuit said the plaintiff, who lives in Florida, met Mr. Combs overseas in 2020 and began seeing him regularly in 2021. Drivers would pick her up, the suit says, and she would be taken to his homes in Los Angeles, New York and Florida.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Woman Accuses Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs of Raping Her in Filmed Attack

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      In a new lawsuit, the woman said Mr. Combs and his bodyguard drugged and assaulted her in his recording studio in 2001.A woman accused the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs of drugging and raping her at his recording studio in Manhattan in 2001 in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, saying that she learned last year that the assault had been recorded and shown to others.The lawsuit was filed about a week after Mr. Combs, 54, was arrested on charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Six other women have accused Mr. Combs of sexual assault in lawsuits in the past year, while three additional lawsuits have accused him of sexual misconduct.The plaintiff in the suit filed on Tuesday, Thalia Graves, said in her complaint that she was 25 at the time of the assault and knew Mr. Combs through her boyfriend at the time, who was working for Bad Boy, Mr. Combs’s record label. The lawsuit said that in or around the summer of 2001, Mr. Combs called her and asked to meet in person. After arriving in an S.U.V. to pick her up, the lawsuit said, he offered her a glass of wine that made her feel “lightheaded, dizzy and physically weak.”When they arrived at the recording studio, the suit said, Ms. Graves lost consciousness and later woke up to find herself naked and her hands tied behind her back with “what felt like a plastic grocery bag.” She said in the court filing that a bodyguard of Mr. Combs’s had lifted her up and slammed her down onto a table, after which she recalled Mr. Combs raping her.“Plaintiff was unable to move, totally overpowered physically, in addition to being drugged and bound,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Manhattan.Representatives for Mr. Combs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Ms. Graves’s suit also names the bodyguard, Joseph Sherman, as a defendant, saying that he assaulted her and forced her to give him oral sex. Mr. Sherman said in an interview that he stopped working with Bad Boy in 1999 and had “nothing to do” with Mr. Combs by 2001.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Woman Accuses Sean Combs of Raping Her in Filmed Attack

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      In a new lawsuit, the woman said Mr. Combs and his bodyguard drugged and assaulted her in his recording studio in 2001.A woman accused the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs of drugging and raping her at his recording studio in Manhattan in 2001 in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, saying that she learned last year that the assault had been recorded and shown to others.The lawsuit was filed about a week after Mr. Combs, 54, was arrested on charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Six other women have accused Mr. Combs of sexual assault in lawsuits in the past year, while three additional lawsuits have accused him of sexual misconduct.The plaintiff in the suit filed on Tuesday, Thalia Graves, said in her complaint that she was 25 at the time of the assault and knew Mr. Combs through her boyfriend at the time, who was working for Bad Boy, Mr. Combs’s record label. The lawsuit said that in or around the summer of 2001, Mr. Combs called her and asked to meet in person. After arriving in an S.U.V. to pick her up, the lawsuit said, he offered her a glass of wine that made her feel “lightheaded, dizzy and physically weak.”When they arrived at the recording studio, the suit said, Ms. Graves lost consciousness and later woke up to find herself naked and her hands tied behind her back with “what felt like a plastic grocery bag.” She said in the court filing that a bodyguard of Mr. Combs’s had lifted her up and slammed her down onto a table, after which she recalled Mr. Combs raping her.“Plaintiff was unable to move, totally overpowered physically, in addition to being drugged and bound,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Manhattan.Representatives for Mr. Combs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Ms. Graves’s suit also names the bodyguard, Joseph Sherman, as a defendant, saying that he assaulted her and forced her to give him oral sex. Mr. Sherman said in an interview that he stopped working with Bad Boy in 1999 and had “nothing to do” with Mr. Combs by 2001.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Strange Cellmates in a Brooklyn Jail: Sean Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried

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      Mr. Combs is sleeping in the same dormitory-style room as Mr. Bankman-Fried, the crypto mogul who was convicted of fraud.Sean Combs is living in the same unit of a Brooklyn jail as Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto mogul convicted of fraud, sleeping in a dormitory-style room with a group of other defendants assigned to the same section, according to a person familiar with the living arrangements.Mr. Combs has been held in the jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center, for nearly a week, since federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging him with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking in what the government has called a “decades-long pattern of physical and sexual violence.”He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his lawyers argued strenuously for him to be released on bail, proposing to a judge that he put up a $50 million bond and hire a security team to monitor him at all hours. The judge rejected the proposal, saying that he had concerns about Mr. Combs attempting to witness tamper, landing him in a special housing unit that often holds high-profile inmates.A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons said the agency “does not provide information about conditions of confinement, including housing assignments or internal security practices for any particular incarcerated individual.”Mr. Bankman-Fried has been housed in the jail, known as M.D.C., since last year, when his bail was revoked after a judge ruled that he had violated conditions of his release. In the lead-up to his trial, his lawyers complained that he had only intermittent internet access and could not adequately prepare for his case. They said that Mr. Bankman-Fried, a vegan, was subsisting on a diet of water, bread and peanut butter.Mr. Bankman-Fried, who founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, was convicted of masterminding a sweeping fraud in which he siphoned billions of dollars of his customers’ money into venture capital investments, political contributions and other lavish spending. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean Combs’s Arrest Has the Music World Asking: Is Our #MeToo Here?

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      Activists and survivors are hopeful for change after the industry, which has a pervasive party culture, largely avoided the accountability that swept Hollywood and politics.The arrest of Sean Combs last week, on charges including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, represents a stunning reversal of fortune for the hip-hop impresario, who as recently as a year ago was feted as an industry visionary before a sudden series of sexual assault accusations.The indictment against Mr. Combs accuses him of running a criminal enterprise centered on abusing women, and of using bribery, arson, kidnapping and threats of violence to intimidate and silence victims. He has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to the charges.But Mr. Combs’s arrest has also stirred the hopes of activists and survivors of sexual violence that his case may finally lead to lasting change in the music industry. Though long seen as inhospitable to women, the business has largely avoided the scrutiny and accountability that swept Hollywood, politics and much of the media world at the peak of the #MeToo movement in the late 2010s.There is no single explanation for why music dodged a similar reckoning. Some point to the industry’s decentralized power structure, its pervasive party culture and a history of deference to artists and top executives.“Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, the looseness with sexuality — that is baked into the culture of the music industry,” said Caroline Heldman, a professor at Occidental College and a longtime activist. “Unfortunately, that means that rape culture is baked into it, because there aren’t mechanisms of accountability.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More