Diddy probe may last months before feds decide whether to file charges. Here’s why
Federal agents swarmed the Miami Beach and Los Angeles homes of Sean “Diddy” Combs during simultaneous raids on Monday — and even questioned the superstar hiphop producer at a local airport — but it’s going to be a while before prosecutors consider charging him in an unfolding sextrafficking investigation.
The search warrants, which reflect a road map of insider information from people linked to Combs who have sued him, allowed agents to focus on collecting electronic equipment such as laptops, mobile phones and other devices at the mega-rapper’s estates, according to sources familiar with the probe.
Homeland Security Investigations agents will now pore over the evidence gathered from the searches to verify whether Combs pressured his staffers and associates to hire prostitutes and possibly minors to have sex with him as he traveled across the country, as alleged in recent lawsuits, the sources said. That review, along with testimony from cooperating witnesses and potential victims, could take weeks or months before federal prosecutors decide whether they have enough to bring charges.
“This investigation is about the electronics,” one source told the Miami Herald.
In a statement sent Tuesday evening to the Herald, a lawyer for Diddy decried the federal agents’ raids and said Diddy is “innocent and will continue to fight every single day to clear his name.”
“Yesterday, there was a gross overuse of militarylevel force as search warrants were executed at Mr. Combs’ residences,” said the statement from Aaron Dyer, a lawyer representing Diddy. “... Mr. Combs was never detained but spoke to and cooperated with authorities. Despite media speculation, neither Mr. Combs nor any of his family members have been arrested nor has their ability to travel been restricted in any way.
“This unprecedented ambush —paired with an advanced, coordinated media presence — leads to a premature rush to judgment of Mr. Combs ... based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits. There has been no finding of criminal or civil liability with any of these allegations.”
WHAT PROSECUTORS WILL NEED TO PROVE
The investigation, led by HSI’s office in New York and prosecutors at the Manhattan-based U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, will depend on whether the collective evidence shows Combs used both money and force to get sex workers and possibly underage girls to have sexual encounters with him at his homes in
Miami Beach, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
While HSI agents in Miami were able to question Combs on Monday afternoon at Miami Opalocka Executive Airport, they eventually let him go with his entourage on a planned trip to Antigua because officials are still gathering evidence.
In South Florida, sextrafficking investigations are commonplace, but the cases are hard to prove because authorities have to show that a perpetrator either physically threatened or forced people to engage in sexual activity with them or others for money. Getting alleged victims to testify is also a challenge because they often fear retaliation.
Such cases can be less difficult to make if the victims are underage girls or boys, but even then, there’s always the question of whether they will cooperate as witnesses.
In South Florida’s most notorious case, federal prosecutors chose not to bring sex-trafficking charges against wealthy New York investor Jeffrey Epstein, who was suspected of sexually abusing young women and teenage girls at his estate in Palm
Beach.
Instead, in 2006, federal prosecutors let state authorities pursue two lighter charges of soliciting prostitution, which led to a lenient jail term of 13 months and eventually a huge scandal that climaxed with Epstein’s suicide in a New York jail in
The Miami club Booby Trap on the River
2019 as he faced new sex-trafficking charges there.
LAWSUIT DETAILS SEXUAL ACTIVITIES
A lawsuit filed in New York last month by music producer Rodney “Lil
Rod” Jones says Combs, his staff and other executives knew about — and were involved in — illicit and unwanted sexual activities in Florida, New York, California and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Jones, who plays multiple instruments and was hired by Combs in 2022 to help produce his latest album, claims in the suit that Combs threatened him, groped him and drugged him.
Jones, who claims to have video recordings of their interactions, has “irrefutable evidence” of Combs “providing laced alcoholic beverages to minors and sex workers at his homes in California, New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Florida.” Jones also said Combs forced
him to go to Booby Trap on the River in Miami to solicit strippers to have sex with Combs, the suit says.
In lawsuits, four women have accused Combs of rape, assault and a litany of other abuses dating back three decades. One of the allegations involved a minor, according to the
Los Angeles Times.
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, according to a lawsuit in November 2023. It was resolved through a settlement almost immediately.
Her suit prompted others to go public with claims against the famous hip-hop mogul.
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.
In a third lawsuit, Liza
Gardner claimed that Combs and an R&B singer sexually assaulted her.
Another lawsuit alleged that Combs and former Bad Boy label president Harve Pierre gang-raped and sex-trafficked a 17year-old girl. Pierre said in a statement that the allegations were “disgusting,” “false” and a “desperate attempt for financial gain.”
After the filing of the fourth suit, Combs wrote on Instagram: “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.”