Producer Sean “Diddy” Combs is confronted with fresh accusations of sexual assault, marking at least the third civil complaint lodged against him within the last three weeks.
The latest complaint, filed on Wednesday and reported by CNN, alleges Combs of sex trafficking and gang rape, among other charges. Harve Pierre, the former president of Combs’ company Bad Boy Entertainment, is also named, along with a third assailant.
Combs responded to the suit in a statement through his representative Nathalie Moar: “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.”
Representatives of Pierre and Bad Boy Entertainment have been contacted by CNN in an attempt to get their thoughts on the accusations.
The plaintiff in the case is a woman known only as Jane Doe, who was 17, according to the complaint, when the alleged assault occurred in 2003. The US District Court for the Southern District of New York received the filing.
As a result of the alleged assault, Jane Doe has “suffered significant emotional distress and [feelings] of shame that have plagued her life and personal relationships for 20 years,” according to the complaint.
Jane Doe is seeking unspecified monetary damages.
“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 drugs and alcohol and transporting her by private jet to New York City where she was gang raped by the three individual defendants at Mr. Combs’ studio,” Douglas H. Wigdor, founding partner of Wigdor LLP, said in a statement to CNN. “The depravity of these abhorrent acts has, not surprisingly, scarred our client for life.”
Jane Doe is suing the defendants for violation of the New York Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law.
According to the New York City Council, the law gives “survivors of gender-motivated acts of violence more time to pursue civil actions by extending the statute of limitations” and also “applies to such acts committed by parties who direct, enable, participate in, or conspire in a gender-motivated act of violence.”
In March, a window of two years opened up for survivors of gender-based violence to file a civil lawsuit, even in cases where the alleged offenses’ statute of limitations has run out. The statute runs out in 2025.
Singer Cassie Ventura, Combs’s ex-partner, filed a lawsuit in November alleging rape and abuse against him using the now-expired New York Adult Survivors Act. One day after Ventura filed the lawsuit, the parties came to an agreement.
“I have decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control. I want to thank my family, fans and lawyers for their unwavering support,” Ventura said in a statement obtained by CNN at the time.
A representative for Combs said in a statement to CNN that the settlement was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing” and “does not in any way undermine his flat-out denial of the claims.”
CNN revealed that Combs was the target of a second lawsuit brought under the New York Adult Survivors Act in response to Ventura’s lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleged that he had drugged and sexually assaulted a woman, subjecting her to “revenge porn.” Combs, represented by his spokesperson, has vehemently denied all the accusations leveled against him