Sean Combs Accused of ‘Gang Rape’ of 17-Year-Old in New Lawsuit
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Sean Combs, his longtime lieutenant Harve Pierre, and a third unidentified man allegedly “gang raped” a 17-year-old girl inside Combs’ recording studio in Manhattan in 2003, after the high school student was trafficked across state lines and plied with “copious amounts of drugs and alcohol,” an explosive new lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges.
The new Jane Doe plaintiff — the fourth woman to accuse Combs of sexual assault in three weeks — alleges the men took turns raping her in a bathroom at Daddy’s House Recording Studio when she was in high school and Combs was 34 years old.
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Combs vehemently denied Doe’s allegations in a statement issued shortly after the lawsuit was filed. “Enough is enough. For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth,” Combs says in the statement to Rolling Stone.
The new lawsuit alleges Jane Doe was out with a friend at a lounge in the Detroit area two decades ago when Pierre singled her out, complimented her appearance, and insisted he was “best friends” with Combs. Pierre purportedly told the teen that Combs would love to meet her, and called Combs on his phone so the music mogul could personally invite her on an impromptu trip to New York aboard a private jet.
The 14-page complaint alleges the private jet eventually transported the teen to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, where a waiting SUV whisked her, Pierre, and the third unidentified man to the studio where Combs was finishing up work with a recording artist. The filing, obtained by Rolling Stone, features multiple color photos allegedly taken inside Daddy’s House Recording Studio that night, including one where the teen is sitting on Combs’ lap. The filing claims that the teen was fed a “copious” amount of intoxicants as Combs, Pierre, and the third man hit on her “incessantly” and groped her body.
As the teen became so inebriated that everything started to “blur,” Combs allegedly led her to a bathroom, removed her skirt and underwear, and penetrated her from behind with his penis while she “hung over the sink,” the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York states.
“Ms. Doe did not consent to having sex with Mr. Combs, but he continued thrusting. At some point, Mr. Combs turned Ms. Doe around to face him. He told her that he could not orgasm and asked her to squeeze his nipples as hard as she could to help him ‘get off.’ He then turned her back around and continued to rape her,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit, which includes a “trigger warning” in bright-red letters on its cover page, alleges the teen was slipping in and out of consciousness when she looked up in the mirror above the sink and realized the unidentified man from the plane ride had replaced Combs and was now raping her from behind. According to the filing, Combs was watching the assault from a chair just outside the bathroom.
Doe alleges the unidentified man ignored her pleas to stop, but eventually got out of the way so Pierre could take a turn. She claims Pierre first subjected her to “nonconsensual vaginal sex,” and that he finished by “violently forcing her to give him oral sex.”
“Ms. Doe remembers that Mr. Pierre was sweaty and that she had difficulty breathing,” the lawsuit alleges. “When Mr. Pierre finished, he left Ms. Doe in the bathroom alone. Ms. Doe fell into the fetal position and lay on the floor. Her vagina was in pain.”
Once the teen “regained her bearings” enough to walk with some assistance, she was taken back to the airport and flown back to Michigan, the lawsuit that also names Daddy’s House Recordings and Bad Boy Entertainment as defendants says. She has “very limited recollection” of the return flight and “only remembers being in her car sometime early in the morning,” it states.
The lawsuit further claims Combs and his associates spent a significant amount of time in Detroit, and that Combs had many connections in Michigan — primarily the Black Mafia Family, “a drug trafficking and money laundering operation that is rumored to have seeded Bad Boy.” (Attempts to reach Pierre were not immediately successful Wednesday.)
Lawyer Douglas H. Wigdor filed the new lawsuit on behalf of the teen after he previously represented R&B singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura in her bombshell Nov. 16 complaint against Combs that accused him of serial sexual assault and trafficking. Cassie alleged Combs raped her, forced her to have nonconsensual, drug-fueled sex with other men while he watched, and “often punched, beat, kicked and stomped” her.
The pair announced a settlement one day later. Combs’ lawyer said the pact was not an admission of guilt. “Just so we’re clear, a decision to settle a lawsuit, especially in 2023, is in no way an admission of wrongdoing,” Combs’ lawyer Ben Brafman said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “Mr. Combs’ decision to settle the lawsuit does not in any way undermine his flat-out denial of the claims. He is happy they got to a mutual settlement and wishes Ms. Ventura the best.”
Wigdor started the latest lawsuit from the new Jane Doe by invoking Cassie’s case. He alleged that Ventura’s claims were quickly corroborated by others and acted as a catalyst for more accusers to speak up in solidarity. He wrote that it was “triggering” for Doe to read Cassie’s allegations of being forced to have sex with other men against her will, but that she now understands “she too had been sex trafficked and that Mr. Combs’ behavior in forcing women into nonconsensual sex was not an isolated incident or unique only to Ms. Ventura.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, Wigdor alleges Combs, Pierre, and the third unidentified defendant “preyed on a vulnerable high school teenager as part of a sex trafficking scheme that involved plying her with alcohol and transporting her by private jet to New York City where she was gang raped.” He says “the depravity of these abhorrent acts has, not surprisingly, scarred Doe for life.” The lawsuit alleges Doe suffered “monetary damages, physical injury, pain and suffering, and serious psychological and emotional distress, entitling her to an award of compensatory and punitive damages.”
Pierre, who met Combs at Howard University before working for him at Bad Boy Records, was the subject of yet another lawsuit filed under the Adult Survivors Act on Nov. 21. An unidentified executive assistant alleged Pierre groomed, harassed, and sexually assaulted her on numerous occasions in 2016 and 2017. (Pierre did not respond to a request for comment on the complaint.)
The new Jane Doe lawsuit filed Wednesday was brought under a New York City measure called the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Act, legislation from the City Council that created a two-year “lookback” window for civil claims that previously fell outside the statute of limitations. The measure applies to claims of gender-motivated violence inside the city’s five boroughs only. It expires on March 1, 2025.
The three prior lawsuits against Combs were filed under the state’s Adult Survivor’s Act, which expired last month. After Cassie’s lawsuit, two more women stepped forward on Thanksgiving Day with similarly disturbing claims against Combs. The second accuser alleged Combs drugged and sexually assaulted her when she was a Syracuse University student in 1991. The woman claimed Combs filmed the incident and showed the video to others in an act described as “revenge porn.” Through a rep, Combs denied the allegation. “This last-minute lawsuit is an example of how a well-intentioned law can be turned on its head. (This) 32-year-old story is made up and not credible. Mr. Combs never assaulted her, and she implicates companies that did not exist. This is purely a money grab and nothing more,” the spokesperson said.
The third lawsuit alleged Combs and singer-songwriter Aaron Hall took turns raping a plaintiff and her friend following an event at Uptown Records in the early 1990s. The plaintiff claimed that days after the alleged rape, Combs showed up at the home where she was staying and turned violent: “He was irate and began assaulting and choking Jane Doe to the point that she passed out,” the complaint alleged.
“These are fabricated claims falsely alleging misconduct from over 30 years ago and filed at the last minute,” a Combs spokesperson said of the third accuser. “This is nothing but a money grab.”
Though Combs has denied any wrongdoing, he stepped down from the chairmanship of his media company Revolt last week, and reportedly was dropped by the Harlem charter school he co-founded. Liquor giant Diageo, meanwhile, is asking a judge to block Combs’ request for a court injunction that would allow him to use incoming marketing dollars to splash his face on advertising for DeLéon Tequila. Diageo said such a campaign would be “devastating” for the brand.
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