Fourth accuser sues Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs for rape, as he responds

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Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul who has been named in three recent lawsuits accusing him of rape, now faces a fourth complaint, by a woman who says that Combs and two other men gang-raped her in a New York recording studio 20 years ago, when she was 17 years old.

In the latest lawsuit, filed Wednesday in US District Court in Manhattan, the woman, who is not named in the court papers, described a nightmarish scene on a night in 2003, when she was in the 11th grade. The woman says in the complaint that she met two associates of Combs at a lounge in the Detroit area, and they took her on a private plane to New York. There, the suit says, the three men gave the woman copious amounts of drugs and alcohol and took turns raping her in the studio’s bathroom as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

Sean “Diddy” CombsCredit: AP

When they were done, the suit says, the woman fell into a fetal position in a bathroom, lying on the floor in pain, and she was soon driven to an airport and put on a plane back to Michigan.

In a statement, Combs said, “Enough is enough. 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.”

Through his lawyers, Combs has denied the allegations in the three earlier suits.

Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for the unidentified woman, released his own statement that said, “As alleged in the complaint, defendants preyed on a vulnerable high school teenager as part of a sex trafficking scheme that involved plying her with alcohol and transporting her by private jet to New York City where she was gang-raped by the three individual defendants at Mr. Combs’s studio.”

“The depravity of these abhorrent acts,” he added, “scarred” the woman “for life.”

The first of the recent lawsuits against Combs, who has been known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, was filed November 16 by Casandra Ventura, a singer once signed to Combs’ label, Bad Boy, who was also his longtime girlfriend. In a graphic 35-page complaint, Ventura, who performs as Cassie, accused him of rape and forcing her to have sex with a series of male prostitutes, as well as subjecting her to violent beatings that took place over nearly a decade. The case was settled in just one day. Combs denied the accusations, and Ventura said in a statement that the case had been resolved “amicably.”

But Ventura’s suit, even after its settlement, was followed by other accusations that now confront Combs, 54, who just a few months ago had been celebrated as one of the most eminent and influential figures in hip-hop, during the genre’s 50th anniversary year.

Two more suits against Combs were filed within days of Ventura’s. In addition, other past accusations of violence against women by Combs have resurfaced online, putting his lucrative personal brand at risk.

Cassie Ventura, left, and Sean “Diddy” Combs arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story” in 2017, in Beverly Hills.Credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

Last week, Combs stepped aside as chair of Revolt, his cable TV network. Diageo, the alcoholic beverage giant that Combs is suing over allegations that it treated unequally the brands he has promoted because he is Black — which the company denies — told a New York judge that its DeLeón tequila brand could not continue to feature Combs in promotional material. The company said in a court filing that his “now-toxic image” made it “impossible for him to continue to be the ‘face’ of anything.”

In the most recent suit, the unidentified woman says she was with friends at a lounge in the Detroit area when she met Harve Pierre, Bad Boy’s former president, who is also named as a defendant in the case and is accused of taking part in raping the woman. The woman, according to the court papers, said Pierre told her that Combs “would love to meet” her, and then, in a bathroom at the lounge, Pierre “demanded” oral sex before asking her to accompany him on a private flight to New York City.

While at the recording studio, according to the suit, the woman met Combs and took a photo sitting on his lap, which was included in the complaint with her face obscured. “Ms Doe became more and more inebriated,” the complaint reads, “eventually to the point that she could not possibly have consented to having sex with anyone, much less someone twice her age.”

Eventually, the lawsuit says, Combs directed her into the bathroom, where he raped her, and then sat in a chair outside the bathroom watching as an unnamed man raped her. The suit says Pierre assaulted her last.

Pierre could not be reached for comment. He was named in an earlier case, filed last month, that accused him of grooming and sexually assaulting an assistant at Bad Boy.

A spokesperson for Bad Boy, which was also named as a defendant in that case against Pierre, has said the company was “investigating the allegations.”

The new suit says it is being filed under New York City’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Act, which, for a limited period of time, allows accusers to file civil complaints involving sexual assault claims after the statute of limitations has run out. Wigdor said that the suit was filed in federal court because the plaintiff and the defendant live outside New York.

In the latest suit, the woman said that she has suffered significant emotional distress in the two decades since the encounter and that reading about the cases filed by Ventura and the two other plaintiffs had led her to file her own.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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