By Anne Branigin and Herb Scribner
Houston: A team of lawyers has announced it would be filing more than 100 sexual assault lawsuits against Sean Combs, a massive legal action that appears to have few if any precedents in the #MeToo era.
The lawsuits would exponentially increase the number of sexual abuse accusations against the embattled music producer, commonly known by his stage name Diddy.
“The biggest secret in the entertainment industry, that really wasn’t a secret at all, has finally been revealed to the world,” said Tony Buzbee, one of the lead attorneys, at a news conference in Houston on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST). “The wall of silence has now been broken.”
Lawyers have announced they will file 120 lawsuits against Sean “Diddy” Combs.Credit: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Plaintiffs will also be represented by Andrew Van Arsdale, who previously represented hundreds of victims in a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America. He called the forthcoming filings “unprecedented in scope” in an interview with The Washington Post.
Van Arsdale said Combs’ alleged victims include a roughly equal number of men and women, who ranged in age from nine to 38 at the time of the attacks. The alleged assaults span a 20-year period in the 2000s and 2010s, when Combs was at the height of his celebrity. The victims felt compelled to come forward after Combs was arrested and denied bond last month, Van Arsdale said, saying that the criminal charges validated their experiences after many victims spent years blaming themselves.
Van Arsdale said 120 individual lawsuits will be filed in New York, California and Florida, beginning within the next month.
Erica Wolff, a lawyer for Combs, denied the allegations in a statement. “As Mr Combs’ legal team has emphasised, he cannot address every meritless allegation in what has become a reckless media circus. That said, Mr Combs emphatically and categorically denies as false and defamatory any claim that he sexually abused anyone, including minors. He looks forward to proving his innocence and vindicating himself in court, where the truth will be established based on evidence, not speculation.”
The alleged assaults happened primarily in New York – either in Manhattan or the Hamptons – as well as Los Angeles and Miami, Buzbee said at the news conference. They allegedly took place at well-known venues, hotels and private residences, including holiday parties and album release celebrations. Assaults were also alleged to have occurred at auditions and Combs’ famous and well-attended White Parties, which he held regularly in the early 2000s.
“The day will come when we will name names other than Sean Combs. And there’s a lot of names,” Buzbee said at the news conference.
“The names that we’re going to name, assuming our investigators confirm and corroborate what we’ve been told, are names that will shock you,” he added. “I’m talking here about not just the cowardly but complicit bystanders, that is those people that we know watched this behaviour occur and did nothing. And I’m talking about the people that participated, encouraged it, egged it on. They know who they are.”
Houston lawyer Tony Buzbee holds a news conference at his office announcing that he’s representing 120 accusers who have come forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Sean “Diddy” Combs.Credit: AP
According to Buzbee, more than half of the alleged victims reported their assault to police or at a hospital. Toxicology reports found that some of the alleged victims had horse tranquillisers in their system, he said. Combs and his associates will also be accused in these lawsuits of threatening victims to stay silent, and making $US10,000 ($14,500) hush money payments.
Most of the alleged victims are African American and nearly a third are white, Buzbee said. Of the 120 alleged victims, 25 were minors at the time the alleged assaults. Some of the alleged victims have been in contact with the FBI, he said.
In November, Combs’ former protege and girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie (Cassandra Ventura), sued him, alleging years of sexual abuse, including rape. The lawsuit was settled the day after it was filed, but other alleged victims began speaking out.
Combs – who has generally denied all accusations against him – has previously been sued for sexual assault nearly a dozen times, by women and men, and has been held without bond in a Brooklyn jail since he was arrested last month on federal charges of sex trafficking and racketeering.
Buzbee and Van Arsdale’s law firms called for potential victims to come forward after the arrest. Over 10 days, they received more than 3000 responses, said Van Arsdale. They narrowed that number to more than 100 cases they were able to corroborate and considered credible.
On top of violent sexual assault and sexual abuse, lawyers said they also plan to accuse Combs of facilitating sex with a controlled substance, false imprisonment, dissemination of video recordings and sexual abuse of minors.
Van Arsdale told The Washington Post he was struck by the similarities in the accusations. Many of the alleged victims were trying to break into the music industry, he said.
The Washington Post
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.