Africa-Press – Lesotho. A fourth woman has publicly accused music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs of a sexual offence alleging that he and others gang-raped her when she was 17, according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.
It is alleged in the suit that Combs – an artist and producer also known as Puff Daddy – met the unnamed woman in 2003 after his associate, Harve Pierre, singled her out at a lounge in Detroit and convinced her to take a private jet to New York to meet the rapper.
Prior to taking the flight, Pierre allegedly forced the then 17-year-old to perform oral sex on him. There, the group of men, including Combs, plied her with drugs and alcohol before violently raping her repeatedly, according to the allegations in the civil suit, filed in a federal court in New York alleges.
Her lawyer, Douglas Wigdor – who also represented R&B singer Cassie, the first woman to publicly come forward against Combs – said “the depravity of these abhorrent acts has, not surprisingly, scarred our client for life”. It is the fourth lawsuit against Combs involving similar allegations.
The first, from Cassie, was settled two days after it was filed under the New York Adult Survivors Act, a law that opened a one-year window for the filing of sexual offence claims that would otherwise have dated too far back.
Combs has vehemently denied the allegations. His lawyer did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment on Wednesday’s filing. Following Cassie’s lawsuit, plaintiff Joi Dickerson-Neal alleged she had been “drugged, sexually assaulted and abused” in 1992 by the rapper and that he had filmed and distributed the acts as “revenge porn.
” Another complaint filed anonymously contains allegations that Combs and music collaborator Aaron Hall raped her.
In recent weeks, an additional lawsuit accused Pierre of abusing his position atop Combs’ label to groom and sexually assault his former assistant. The suit says Combs’ company, Bad Boy Entertainment, looked the other way.
Combs, 54, founded Bad Boy in 1993, and was a major figure in hip-hop’s commercialisation over the course of the decades that followed. His proteges included the late Notorious B.
I. G. and Mary J. Blige. He is among hip-hop’s billionaires, not least due to his ventures in the liquor industry. The recent lawsuits against him describe Combs as a violent man who used his celebrity status to prey on and intimidate women.
On Wednesday, the 54-year-old vehemently denied the “sickening allegations” against him in a post shared on Instagram. “Enough is enough,” begins the post, “For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy.
“Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
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