Combs’ lawyers and other representatives did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. When the planned lawsuits were announced on October 1, a lawyer said Combs “cannot address every meritless allegation in what has become a reckless media circus”.
Combs, 54, has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking charges alleging he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
In this courtroom sketch, Sean “Diddy” Combs’ defence lawyer Marc Agnifilo, left, addresses the judge while Combs, second from right, in prison uniform, watches during a hearing in federal court in New York last week.Credit: AP
Combs’ lawyers have been trying unsuccessfully to get the Bad Boy Records founder freed on bail. He has been held at a Brooklyn federal jail since his September 16 arrest.
Two judges have concluded that Combs would be a danger to the community if he is released from the Metropolitan Detention Centre, a facility that has been plagued by violence and dysfunction for years. At a bail hearing three weeks ago, a judge rejected a proposed $US50 million ($74 million) bail package, including home detention and electronic monitoring, after concluding Combs might tamper with witnesses and obstruct a continuing investigation.
On Friday, an appeals court judge denied Combs’ immediate release from jail while a three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals weighs his bail request.
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Other lawsuits filed on Monday in US District Court in Manhattan include allegations of rape, forced oral sex and drugging to incapacitate victims.
One of the Jane Does suing Combs alleges he raped her in a locked hotel room in 2004 after he invited her and a friend there for a party, gave them drinks and told them to snort cocaine.
The woman, then a college freshman, alleges Combs also forced her friend to perform oral sex on him and said he would have them both killed if they didn’t comply with his demands.
The other Jane Doe alleges Combs violently attacked and raped her in a bathroom in 2005 at a party for the late rapper Biggie Smalls’ music video, One More Chance.
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According to the woman, Combs brought her into the bathroom to talk privately and then started kissing her unexpectedly. When she tried to pull away, she alleges, he slammed her head against the wall, causing her to fall to the floor. The woman said she tried to escape, but Combs hit her again and raped her.
Afterwards, according to the woman, Combs nonchalantly adjusted his clothing and told her: “You better not tell anyone about this, or you will disappear.”
In another John Doe lawsuit, a man working as a security guard at Combs’ Hamptons white party in 2006 alleges the star gave him an alcoholic beverage he came to believe was laced with a drug that made him feel extremely ill. The man alleges Combs then pushed him into a van, held him down and sexually assaulted him.
In the other lawsuits filed on Monday, Combs is accused of forcing a man to perform oral sex on him in the stockroom of Macy’s flagship store in Manhattan’s Herald Square in 2008 and sexually assaulting a man at a party in October 2021. The latter man, who suspects a drugged beverage left him unable to fight back, recalls multiple men assaulting him and distinctly recalls seeing Combs above him, naked, at one point during the assault, his lawsuit said.
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