New York
Combs faces new sex trafficking charges a month before trial
NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors on Friday added two charges to Sean “Diddy” Combs ‘ indictment and said they expect four accusers to testify against him, expanding on allegations that the jailed hip-hop mogul engaged in sex trafficking with multiple women and as recently as last year.
A superseding indictment accuses Combs of using force, fraud or coercion to compel a woman to engage in commercial sex acts from at least 2021 to 2024.
The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Manhattan, also alleges that Combs was involved in transporting the woman — identified only as “Victim-2” — and other people, including commercial sex workers, to engage in prostitution during the same period.
The new charges are in addition to racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges filed against Combs when he was arrested in September. They increase the total number of charges against him from three to five.
In a court filing, federal prosecutors said the racketeering conspiracy charge involves allegations that Combs sex-trafficked three victims and forced a fourth, one of his employees, into sexual activity with him.
Combs, 55, denies committing any crimes. He is scheduled to stand trial May 5 and remains locked up without bail at a federal jail in Brooklyn.
“These are not new allegations or new accusers. These are the same individuals, former long-term girlfriends, who were involved in consensual relationships,” Combs’ legal team said in a statement.
Friday’s superseding indictment is the third filed against Combs.
In the first, in January, federal prosecutors disclosed that their case involved at least three women whom they said Combs forced to engage in commercial sex acts. They also alleged Combs showed a firearm to a female victim during a kidnapping and once dangled a woman over an apartment balcony.
Combs’ January indictment didn’t include additional charges but modified some details of the existing ones, including adding four years to the alleged racketeering conspiracy. Prosecutors now say it started in 2004, not 2008 as the original indictment had alleged. A superseding indictment in March contained minimal changes.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to the first set of charges, which allege that 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.
His arraignment on the new charges has not been scheduled. Prosecutors asked Friday that it be held at his final pretrial conference on April 25.
In their filing Friday, prosecutors said three of the four accusers who are expected to testify have asked that their identities not be revealed to the press or the public and that they instead be referred to by at trial using only pseudonyms.
The accuser referred to as “Victim-1” in Combs’ charging documents is prepared to testify under her own name, prosecutors said in the filing, which was heavily redacted.
Federal prosecutors allege the “I’ll Be Missing You” singer and Bad Boy Records founder used his “power and prestige” as a music star to induce female victims into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances with male sex workers in events dubbed “Freak Offs.”
Central to the case is a March 2016 video showing Combs hitting and kicking his then-girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie, in a Los Angeles hotel hallway. Prosecutors contend the assault happened during a “Freak Off.” Combs lawyers argue the footage was nothing more than a “glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship” between the two.
Combs’ lawyers contend the case should never have been brought and are fighting to dismiss a charge involving allegations he transported a male escort across state lines.
“The government has concocted a criminal case based primarily on allegations that Mr. Combs and two of his longtime girlfriends sometimes brought a third party — a male escort — into their sexual relationship,” Combs lawyer Alexandra A.E. Shapiro wrote in a February court filing.
“Each of the three charges in the case are premised on the theory that this type of sexual activity is a federal crime,” Shapiro added.
North Dakota
$2 million deal reached in lawsuit over young woman’s death at jail
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A $2 million agreement has been reached in a lawsuit over the death of a young woman while she was in custody at a North Dakota county jail in 2020.
Lacey Higdem, 19, died of a drug overdose on June 4, 2020, hours after she arrived at the Rolette County Jail in Rolla, according to the lawsuit her mother, Jessica Allen, filed in 2022 against the county, two former correctional officers and medical providers. Attorneys for Allen said Thursday they had accepted the county’s offer.
A Bureau of Indian Affairs officer found Higdem while responding to a call about a woman yelling for help in the woods near Belcourt, according to the complaint.
Higdem, who appeared to be in a delusional state, was taken to a hospital but was improperly discharged and in need of further medical attention, the lawsuit alleged. She was taken to the jail and charged with disorderly conduct and preventing arrest, the complaint said.
The two correctional officers did not seek medical help despite obvious signs, and Higdem later was found not moving during a cell check, the complaint said. She was pronounced dead about nine hours after entering the jail, the complaint said.
Higdem died “as the direct and proximate result of the deliberate indifference to her serious medical needs” while in jail and because of medical malpractice at the hospital, the complaint said. She left a young child.
“No mother should have to live with the pain of knowing her child suffered alone when she could have been saved,” Allen said in a statement.
Higdem died from methamphetamine toxicity, lead counsel Andy Noel said.
The court has yet to enter the judgment, he said Friday. The North Dakota Insurance Reserve Fund will pay the $2 million.
The issues with the hospital resulted in a confidential resolution “to the satisfaction of all parties,” Noel said.
A phone message and emails left with attorneys for the county and the former correctional officers were not immediately returned.
The officers were charged with public servant refusing to perform duty, a misdemeanor. Through Alford pleas, they maintained their innocence while acknowledging evidence likely to convict them, and they received sentences that included unsupervised probation and court fees, according to court documents.
Per a court order, after they completed probation, their pleas were withdrawn, their cases dismissed and the files sealed.
Combs faces new sex trafficking charges a month before trial
NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors on Friday added two charges to Sean “Diddy” Combs ‘ indictment and said they expect four accusers to testify against him, expanding on allegations that the jailed hip-hop mogul engaged in sex trafficking with multiple women and as recently as last year.
A superseding indictment accuses Combs of using force, fraud or coercion to compel a woman to engage in commercial sex acts from at least 2021 to 2024.
The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Manhattan, also alleges that Combs was involved in transporting the woman — identified only as “Victim-2” — and other people, including commercial sex workers, to engage in prostitution during the same period.
The new charges are in addition to racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges filed against Combs when he was arrested in September. They increase the total number of charges against him from three to five.
In a court filing, federal prosecutors said the racketeering conspiracy charge involves allegations that Combs sex-trafficked three victims and forced a fourth, one of his employees, into sexual activity with him.
Combs, 55, denies committing any crimes. He is scheduled to stand trial May 5 and remains locked up without bail at a federal jail in Brooklyn.
“These are not new allegations or new accusers. These are the same individuals, former long-term girlfriends, who were involved in consensual relationships,” Combs’ legal team said in a statement.
Friday’s superseding indictment is the third filed against Combs.
In the first, in January, federal prosecutors disclosed that their case involved at least three women whom they said Combs forced to engage in commercial sex acts. They also alleged Combs showed a firearm to a female victim during a kidnapping and once dangled a woman over an apartment balcony.
Combs’ January indictment didn’t include additional charges but modified some details of the existing ones, including adding four years to the alleged racketeering conspiracy. Prosecutors now say it started in 2004, not 2008 as the original indictment had alleged. A superseding indictment in March contained minimal changes.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to the first set of charges, which allege that 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.
His arraignment on the new charges has not been scheduled. Prosecutors asked Friday that it be held at his final pretrial conference on April 25.
In their filing Friday, prosecutors said three of the four accusers who are expected to testify have asked that their identities not be revealed to the press or the public and that they instead be referred to by at trial using only pseudonyms.
The accuser referred to as “Victim-1” in Combs’ charging documents is prepared to testify under her own name, prosecutors said in the filing, which was heavily redacted.
Federal prosecutors allege the “I’ll Be Missing You” singer and Bad Boy Records founder used his “power and prestige” as a music star to induce female victims into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances with male sex workers in events dubbed “Freak Offs.”
Central to the case is a March 2016 video showing Combs hitting and kicking his then-girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie, in a Los Angeles hotel hallway. Prosecutors contend the assault happened during a “Freak Off.” Combs lawyers argue the footage was nothing more than a “glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship” between the two.
Combs’ lawyers contend the case should never have been brought and are fighting to dismiss a charge involving allegations he transported a male escort across state lines.
“The government has concocted a criminal case based primarily on allegations that Mr. Combs and two of his longtime girlfriends sometimes brought a third party — a male escort — into their sexual relationship,” Combs lawyer Alexandra A.E. Shapiro wrote in a February court filing.
“Each of the three charges in the case are premised on the theory that this type of sexual activity is a federal crime,” Shapiro added.
North Dakota
$2 million deal reached in lawsuit over young woman’s death at jail
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A $2 million agreement has been reached in a lawsuit over the death of a young woman while she was in custody at a North Dakota county jail in 2020.
Lacey Higdem, 19, died of a drug overdose on June 4, 2020, hours after she arrived at the Rolette County Jail in Rolla, according to the lawsuit her mother, Jessica Allen, filed in 2022 against the county, two former correctional officers and medical providers. Attorneys for Allen said Thursday they had accepted the county’s offer.
A Bureau of Indian Affairs officer found Higdem while responding to a call about a woman yelling for help in the woods near Belcourt, according to the complaint.
Higdem, who appeared to be in a delusional state, was taken to a hospital but was improperly discharged and in need of further medical attention, the lawsuit alleged. She was taken to the jail and charged with disorderly conduct and preventing arrest, the complaint said.
The two correctional officers did not seek medical help despite obvious signs, and Higdem later was found not moving during a cell check, the complaint said. She was pronounced dead about nine hours after entering the jail, the complaint said.
Higdem died “as the direct and proximate result of the deliberate indifference to her serious medical needs” while in jail and because of medical malpractice at the hospital, the complaint said. She left a young child.
“No mother should have to live with the pain of knowing her child suffered alone when she could have been saved,” Allen said in a statement.
Higdem died from methamphetamine toxicity, lead counsel Andy Noel said.
The court has yet to enter the judgment, he said Friday. The North Dakota Insurance Reserve Fund will pay the $2 million.
The issues with the hospital resulted in a confidential resolution “to the satisfaction of all parties,” Noel said.
A phone message and emails left with attorneys for the county and the former correctional officers were not immediately returned.
The officers were charged with public servant refusing to perform duty, a misdemeanor. Through Alford pleas, they maintained their innocence while acknowledging evidence likely to convict them, and they received sentences that included unsupervised probation and court fees, according to court documents.
Per a court order, after they completed probation, their pleas were withdrawn, their cases dismissed and the files sealed.
