John Jefferson
Sean “Diddy” Combs is sitting in a federal jail in New York, awaiting trial on sex trafficking and other charges in a racketeering case that alleges other, unnamed parties helped commit crimes, which are alleged to have taken place at the mogul’s sultry “freak off” parties.
Big Apple Mayor Eric Adams, who once handed Combs the figurative key to the city, is facing unrelated federal corruption charges across the East River.
Adams gave Combs, who rose to fame after founding Bad Boy Records in 1993, the golden opener around this time last year, proclaiming, “The bad boy of entertainment is getting the key to the city from the bad boy of politics.”
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No one else has been charged in Combs’ alleged sex trafficking operation. Aside from Adams, who the Justice Department accused of corruption and campaign finance crimes Thursday, no one else mentioned here is under federal indictment.
But court documents allege numerous people in Combs’ orbit, including close business associates, were aware of his activities. Some of the lawsuits against him have named names, including one alleging fellow entertainment industry leaders like former Bad Boy executive Harve Pierre.
Still, it’s too early to say who might be in the crosshairs of federal investigators based on publicly available information, according to legal experts.
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“Anyone who actually participated in sex acts with Diddy should be shaking in their boots,” said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor who now runs a private practice in Los Angeles.
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Another lawsuit alleges Oscar-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. of sexually harassing and groping a man at one of Combs’ parties aboard a yacht in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Like Jeffrey Epstein, the sex trafficking financier who had his own private island, Combs, 54, has been accused of seducing victims with his luxurious lifestyle and – in some cases – assaulting them aboard a yacht he rented for trips to the USVI and Saint Barthélemy.
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Court documents allege he coerced victims into having sex with male prostitutes in events that were so rigorous, participants and victims alike received IV treatments afterward.
Combs has for years had ties to entertainment A-listers like Ashton Kutcher, Jay-Z and Leonardo DiCaprio, political leaders including Adams and other Democratic leaders and business titans.
Federal prosecutors haven’t accused any of them of wrongdoing in their investigation into Combs. But the question remains, who was attending his “freak off” parties and who was participating in the abuse if it wasn’t just him?
Moses “Shyne” Barrow, a former Combs protégé who did a decade in prison for a 1999 nightclub shooting in which the mogul was acquitted, wound up deported after serving his sentence and became a politician in his home country.
Barrow is now the opposition leader in the country’s House of Representatives. In a news briefing there recently, he alleged Combs threw him under the bus during the trial, the music website NME reported.
Although he claimed Combs “destroyed [his] life” after the shooting, he denied any knowledge of the infamous “freak off” parties where federal prosecutors say sex trafficking took place.
“He escaped a lot because of who he was,” Derrick Parker, a former member of the NYPD’s rap intelligence unit who investigated the 1999 nightclub shooting, previously told Fox News Digital.. “Now, a lot of stuff is just coming back to him.”
That investigation also led to the arrest of Combs’ girlfriend at the time, pop megastar Jennifer Lopez.
Prosecutors declined to charge her, and she was released.
“Other members of the RICO conspiracy are criminally liable for the sex trafficking even if they didn’t actually participate in the sex acts,” said Rahmani, the former federal prosecutor. “So, someone who bought the thousand bottles of baby oil or who gave the victims post-drug IVs could be charged as a co-conspirator.”
Prosecutors can pressure unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators to turn against Combs or anyone else involved in the alleged crimes, he said. And if they don’t flip, they can face charges themselves.
For the current charges, Combs faces up to life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
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