Sean “Diddy” Combs faces another lawsuit within a two-week span, wherein he is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman who also alleges being a victim of “revenge porn” by the music artist.
The civil suit, filed under the New York Adult Survivors Act, includes Combs and his companies, including Bad Boy Entertainment.
This legal action is part of a surge in cases filed against high-profile individuals as the deadline for filing under the state’s look-back law approaches this week.
The purported victim, Joi Dickerson-Neal, was a student at Syracuse University during the 1991 incident and had previously appeared in a few video clips of a music video with Combs.
According to the lawsuit, she reluctantly agreed to dinner with Combs during a school break for the holidays in January. The suit alleges that he pushed her to keep him company while he attended to “a few things in the city.”
During their dinner, the suit claims that Combs intentionally drugged her, resulting in a physical state where she could not independently stand or walk. It is alleged in the suit that, while at dinner, she left her drink unattended after going to the restroom.
In the car, the suit contends that she took a puff of “blunt” under pressure from Combs, and from that point on, her memory is described as incomplete.
“Driving first to a music studio where she could not get out of the car, Combs proceeded to a place he was staying to sexually assault her,” the suit alleges.
“Because she had been drugged, Plaintiff lacked the physical ability or mental capacity to fend Combs off,” the suit alleges.
The suit alleges Combs video recorded the sexual assault, and days later a male friend revealed to Dickerson that he had viewed it.
“Horrified, Ms. Dickerson asked how many others saw it, to which he responded, ‘everyone.’”
Thereafter, Dickerson alleges her life “went into a tailspin.” She was admitted to the hospital for severe depression and suicide ideation, the suit claims.
According to the suit, Dickerson filed police reports at unspecified agencies in New York and New Jersey, spoke to “several prosecutors” hoping to press charges and was told her “allegations would need to be corroborated.”
The suit goes on to say Combs had experienced “great success” with the launch of late Notorious B.I.G.’s career, whose hit single Juicy charted on Billboard, and claims witnesses were “terrified that Combs would retaliate against them and that they would lose future business and music opportunities if they made a statement in support” of her.
The individual making the accusations was endeavouring to establish herself in the music industry while serving as a location scout for an industry cameraman. Despite her claims of “emotional pain,” she persisted in working within the music industry at a DJ management company following the incident, as outlined in the lawsuit.
Eventually, she departed from the company as Combs’ prominence continued to soar and his ubiquitous presence became unavoidable, according to the suit.
“It was the filing of the lawsuit about his abuse of Cassie Venture [sic] on November 16, 2023, that forced her to face his assault again,” the suit says.
Ventura, a former girlfriend of Combs, accused the rapper and producer of years of sexual abuse, rape and trafficking in a suit Combs said was resolved “amicably” one day after the filing.
Combs’ representative at the time said it was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing” and “does not in any way undermine his flat-out denial of the claims.”