Washington:
Music mogul Sean Combs, also known as Diddy, and his former bodyguard drugged and violently raped a woman in 2001 and filmed the act to show it to his friends, according to a new lawsuit against him. In the court papers filed on Tuesday, Combs and ex-security head Joseph Sherman have been accused by the woman of “mercilessly raping” her at the Manhattan-based Bad Boy Records studio, The New York Post reported.
This comes amid a wave of lawsuits in which the three-time Grammy winner has been accused of sexual assault by multiple women. Combs, one of the most influential hip-hop producers in the US for the past few decades, was arrested from a hotel in New York on September 16.
At a press conference on Tuesday, the woman said she was “happy” that Combs had been put behind bars.
“It’s a pain that goes to the very core of who you are, leaving emotional scars that may never fully heal,” she said, adding the hardest part was the “shame and the guilt” she experienced which then led to a lot of negative things in her day-to-day abilities.
What happened in 2001?
As per the lawsuit, the woman was 25 years old at the time of the incident and was dating one of Combs’ employees.
In 2001, Combs and Sherman lured her into the Bad Boy Records studio and offered her a drink that was “likely laced with a drug”. After consuming it, the woman briefly lost consciousness and found herself “bound and restrained” before them. The two then “proceeded to brutally sexually abuse and violate” her, the documents claimed.
Sherman forcefully slammed the woman onto a table and even slapped her, while forcing her to perform a sexual act. Combs and Sherman were “undeterred” by the woman’s cries for help throughout the incident, according to the details in the lawsuit.
Woman ‘considered ending her life’
The woman never really recovered from this heinous crime, and her emotional wounds aggravated on November 27 last year when she got to know that the attackers made a video of the incident and showed it to “multiple men, seeking to publicly degrade and humiliate both (the woman) and her boyfriend”.
The woman was so “distraught” that she got into “deep depression” and even “considered ending her life,” as per the suit filed in Manhattan federal court.
The woman, who currently resides in Texas, never dared to report this crime to the police. She feared that Combs would use his power to “ruin her life”.
However, she decided to go public after Combs’ arrest earlier this month on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.
At the time of the 2001 incident, the woman alleged she was going through a divorce and “did not get the support that I needed,” the court filing said. Since then, she has struggled a lot and often ended up in abusive relationships, it added.
The crime has left the woman with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as well as depression and anxiety. “I am emotionally scarred… I’m glad that (Combs) is locked up but that is a temporary feeling of relief,” she said.
What lawsuit demands
Through her lawsuit, the woman has asked for the issuance of an injunction, thereby ordering the video to be destroyed and permanently barring anyone from distributing it. Besides this, she has also asked for unspecified damages.
Along with Combs and Sherman, the lawsuit also names Combs’ record companies and claims they “aided and abetted” them.
