Vanessa Obioha
The American hip-hop mogul Sean Combs has been arrested on Monday in Manhattan according to multiple American media outlets. Combs, also known as P.Diddy, was taken into custody after a grand jury indicted him. NBC News reported that he was arrested in a hotel lobby.
The news outlet also reported that his arrest was confirmed by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, in a post on X.
“Earlier this evening, federal agents arrested Sean Combs, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.
While the charges of the indictment remain unclear, a statement from his legal team described Combs as an imperfect person but not a criminal.
“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” RollingStone reported.
“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community. He is an imperfect person but he Is not a criminal.
“To his credit, Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”
Combs has been under federal investigation since March this year. His legal troubles began when his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, popularly known as Cassie, filed a lawsuit last November accusing him of years of sexual and physical abuse. Although the music businessman settled through suit with Ventura within a day, more lawsuits alleging sexual and physical abuse as well as sex trafficking have been filed by other women.
On March 25, federal agents raided Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach, Florida. His electronic devices were reportedly confiscated after he was stopped at a Miami-area airport.
The New York Times reported that authorities made no announcements at the time, but a federal official said the inquiry was at least in part a human trafficking investigation.
Although he denied the allegations in the lawsuits while his lawyers described the raids as “a gross overuse of military-level force,” Combs was back in the spotlight in May after CNN released a hotel surveillance footage showing Combs physically assaulting Ventura. Combs would later apologize in a video but the damage to his reputation almost seemed irredeemable.
He reportedly sold his stake in Revolt, the media company he founded, and his share of DeLeón tequila, a partnership with the spirits conglomerate Diageo. A New York charter school network ended its partnership with him. Also, his mansion in the Holmby Hills neighbourhood of Los Angeles, where federal agents carried out a raid in March, was listed on the real estate market for $61.5 million this month.