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    Cassie’s Lawyer and Women’s Groups React to Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Verdict

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    Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Ms. Ventura, said, “He’s finally been held responsible for two federal crimes, something that he’s never faced in his life.”A lawyer for Casandra Ventura, the star witness in the federal trial against Sean Combs, said he was “pleased” that Mr. Combs had been “held accountable for something.”The jury in the case handed down a mixed verdict on Wednesday, finding Mr. Combs not guilty of federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges, the most serious charges against him, both of which carry a possible life sentence. But it convicted him of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution — violations of the Mann Act — after an eight-week trial. Mr. Combs, who will be sentenced at a later date, and his lawyers were elated in court when the verdict was read.Outside the courthouse, Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for Ms. Ventura, said: “He’s finally been held responsible for two federal crimes, something that he’s never faced in his life.”Women’s advocacy groups and organizations that fight sexual violence praised the women who came forward to testify in the Sean Combs trial but expressed disappointment in the verdict.Advocacy groups had been closely following the deliberations, and they swiftly reacted to the verdict. Most expressed disappointment while praising the two former girlfriends of Mr. Combs’s — Ms. Ventura and a woman known in court as “Jane” — who came forward to tell their stories in often excruciating and lurid detail. Both testified that Mr. Combs had used violence and financial leverage to coerce them into having sex with male escorts.Arisha Hatch, the interim executive director of the women’s advocacy group UltraViolet, condemned the verdict as “a stain on a criminal justice system that for decades has failed to hold accountable abusers like Diddy.” She called it “an indictment of a culture in which not believing women and victims of sexual assault remains endemic.”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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      Most of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Accusers Are Unnamed. Can They Stay That Way?

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      The debate over anonymity in civil and criminal sex abuse cases weighs the principle of a fair trial with the desire to protect accusers’ privacy.As Sean Combs faces numerous anonymous accusers in both civil and criminal court who say he sexually abused them, his lawyers have argued that such anonymity is an unfair impediment to his defense.In more than half of the 27 sexual abuse civil suits against the music mogul, the plaintiffs filed under the pseudonyms Jane Doe or John Doe, drawing opposition from Mr. Combs’s lawyers.Similarly, in his criminal case, where he has been charged with racketeering and sex trafficking, the defense has argued that prosecutors should have to reveal the names of the alleged victims who are part of their case. The only accuser listed in the indictment was identified as “Victim 1,” though prosecutors say there are multiple.“Without clarity from the government,” his lawyers wrote in a letter to the presiding judge, “Mr. Combs has no way of knowing which allegations the government is relying on for purposes of the indictment.”Sexual assault accusers have long sought anonymity in the courts and in the media. The flood of complaints during the #MeToo movement ushered in a much broader societal understanding of their fears of retribution and social stigmatization, and protocols in the American media that withhold accusers’ names became even more entrenched — a commitment illustrated last month when the country superstar Garth Brooks identified an anonymous accuser in court papers. Few, if any, media outlets published her name.Securing anonymity in civil court can be much more challenging.So far, at least two judges in Federal District Court in Manhattan have rejected requests from plaintiffs to remain anonymous in lawsuits against Mr. Combs, who has denied sexually abusing 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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      For Some Sex Assault Accusers, This Local Law Has Become a Last Resort

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      The law, which underpins several civil suits against Sean Combs, is the only remaining tool for reviving older claims in New York.In New York, where state laws that extended the time to file sex abuse suits have lapsed, plaintiffs have found one remaining tool: Section 10-1105 of New York City’s administrative code.The provision, known as the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, has provided the basis for recent lawsuits against the Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler; the luxury real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander; New York City’s Department of Correction; and the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, who is a defendant in four.“This statute continues to provide an avenue of relief for survivors,” said Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for a woman who sued Mr. Combs under the gender-motivated violence law, accusing him and two other men of gang-raping her in a New York recording studio in 2003. He has vehemently denied the allegations.Lawyers say they have been increasingly using the law, first passed by the City Council in 2000, since the expiration last year of the New York state law that had allowed for the filing of lawsuits over sexual abuse allegations even after the statute of limitations had passed. The state law, one of many adopted around the country in the wake of a surge in #MeToo complaints, led to more than 3,000 state court filings relating to claims that often dated back decades — in addition to thousands more filed under an earlier law for people who said they were sexually abused as children.Now plaintiffs are often relying on the city law that — because of a 2022 amendment — established a two-year window in which plaintiffs can sue over older allegations. That window closes at the start of March 2025, and the claims have to be related to events said to have occurred in New York City.In recent months, though, defense lawyers have mounted significant legal challenges to the city’s amendment. They have argued that the City Council infringed on the jurisdiction of state lawmakers, and in several cases, judges have issued decisions limiting the amendment’s scope.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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      The N.Y. Law That Underpins Several Lawsuits Against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

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      The law, which underpins several civil suits against Sean Combs, is the only remaining tool for reviving older claims in New York.In New York, where state laws that extended the time to file sex abuse suits have lapsed, plaintiffs have found one remaining tool: Section 10-1105 of New York City’s administrative code.The provision, known as the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, has provided the basis for recent lawsuits against the Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler; the luxury real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander; New York City’s Department of Correction; and the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, who is a defendant in four.“This statute continues to provide an avenue of relief for survivors,” said Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for a woman who sued Mr. Combs under the gender-motivated violence law, accusing him and two other men of gang-raping her in a New York recording studio in 2003. He has vehemently denied the allegations.Lawyers say they have been increasingly using the law, first passed by the City Council in 2000, since the expiration last year of the New York state law that had allowed for the filing of lawsuits over sexual abuse allegations even after the statute of limitations had passed. The state law, one of many adopted around the country in the wake of a surge in #MeToo complaints, led to more than 3,000 state court filings relating to claims that often dated back decades — in addition to thousands more filed under an earlier law for people who said they were sexually abused as children.Now plaintiffs are often relying on the city law that — because of a 2022 amendment — established a two-year window in which plaintiffs can sue over older allegations. That window closes at the start of March 2025, and the claims have to be related to events said to have occurred in New York City.In recent months, though, defense lawyers have mounted significant legal challenges to the city’s amendment. They have argued that the City Council infringed on the jurisdiction of state lawmakers, and in several cases, judges have issued decisions limiting the amendment’s scope.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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      Why Is Sean Combs the Subject of a Homeland Security Investigation?

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      The department has a division that often directs inquiries into sex trafficking allegations, like those cited in recent lawsuits against Mr. Combs.The raids of Sean Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and the Miami area this week raised a barrage of questions about the nature of the inquiry, which a federal official said was at least in part a human trafficking investigation.The government has said little about the basis for the search warrants, but the raids came after five civil lawsuits were filed against Mr. Combs in recent months that accused him of violating sex trafficking laws. In four of the suits women accused him of rape, and in one a man accused him of unwanted sexual contact. Mr. Combs, a hip-hop impresario known as Puff Daddy and Diddy who has been a high-profile figure in the music industry since the 1990s, has vehemently denied all of the allegations, calling them “sickening.” Officials have not publicly named him as a target of any prosecution.As the civil suits against Mr. Combs illustrate, the term human or sex trafficking has a broader meaning in the law than perhaps the more popularly understood image of organized crime and forced prostitution rings.“Traditionally you think of trafficking as a pimp who has a stable of victims and then is trafficking them in the traditional sense of the word, for money,” said Jim Cole, a former supervisory special agent with Homeland Security Investigations who oversaw human trafficking cases, “but there are lots of forms of trafficking.”The breadth of trafficking investigations has grown with the recent uptick in sexual abuse claims and the use of the internet by traffickers. Homeland Security Investigations often leads such criminal investigations, although the department is most commonly associated with immigration and transnational issues.In the current inquiry, federal investigators in New York have been interviewing potential witnesses about sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Combs for several months, according to a person familiar with the interviews. Some of the questions involved the solicitation and transportation of prostitutes, as well as any payments or promises associated with sex acts, the person said.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