Feds raid Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ homes
LOS ANGELES – Homeland Security agents conducted searches of the Holmby Hills and Miami mansions owned by Sean “Diddy” Combs on Monday as part of a federal inquiry into sex trafficking allegations involving the hip-hop and liquor mogul, law enforcement sources said.
The 17,000-square-foot mansion was flooded with Homeland Security Investigations agents, who served a search warrant and gathered evidence on behalf of an investigation being run by the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, according to law enforcement officials familiar with the inquiry.
Two of Combs’ sons were seen being detained on the Holmby Hills property in Los Angeles as agents searched the mansion in footage captured by FOX11.
Shawn Holley, an attorney for Combs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A hip-hop star turned entrepreneur, Combs has become the focus of sexual assault and sex trafficking allegations in the last year. The raid is the latest and most serious threat to his gilded lifestyle.
Four separate plaintiffs have filed civil lawsuits against Combs accusing him of rape, sex trafficking of a minor, assault and a litany of other alleged abuses, imperiling his empire and sending shock waves through the music industry.
Combs, 54, amassed his fortune first as a hip-hop producer, artist and founder of Bad Boy Entertainment, the label that launched the career of the late Notorious B.I.G. among others. He later added lucrative fashion and liquor companies to his ventures, most notably Sean
John and Ciroc vodka.
His former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, accused him of rape and repeated physical assaults, and said he forced her to have sex with male prostitutes in front of him. Joi Dickerson-Neal accused Combs in a lawsuit of drugging and raping her in 1991, recording the attack and then distributing the footage without her consent.
Liza Gardner filed a third suit in which she claimed Combs and Guy singer Aaron Hall sexually assaulted her. Hall could not be reached for comment.
(Los Angeles Times/TNS)