close
close

first Drop

Com TW NOw News 2024

New lawsuit accuses Sean Combs of rape, recording of assault later distributed as porn
news

New lawsuit accuses Sean Combs of rape, recording of assault later distributed as porn

Another woman has come forward with allegations of sexual assault against Sean “Diddy” Combs. Thalia Graves alleges that Combs and his bodyguard, Joseph Sherman, tied her up and violently raped her in a Bad Boys recording studio in the summer of 2001, recorded the assault without her knowledge and later distributed the video as pornography.

In both her 26-page civil lawsuit and a televised press conference held by her attorney, Gloria Allred, Graves says she was 25 at the time of the attack and met the Bad Boy owner while she was dating a record producer who worked for the label. Graves alleges that Combs invited her to a Manhattan recording studio where he offered her a drink that she believes was laced with drugs; she passed out shortly after drinking it. When she awoke, Graves claims she was naked with her hands “tied and bound” with what she believes was a plastic bag.

Graves alleges that Combs entered the room naked and that he and Sherman, also known as Big Joe, then took turns vaginally and anally raping her. When she tried to escape from under him, Combs slammed her head into a pool table, knocking her unconscious again. When she woke up, Graves alleges that Sherman beat her and forced her to perform oral sex on her until she passed out a third time. The civil lawsuit alleges that “neither man was deterred by plaintiff’s cries for help during the attack.”

When she regained consciousness, she claims she was alone in the studio and ran out as fast as she could. The lawsuit alleges she was “terrified of what Combs would do to her and her family if she turned him in” and was not given a rape kit. When she confided in her then-boyfriend, Graves says he discouraged her from revealing the assault for fear of the negative impact it would have on his own career.

Graves says she never recovered from the 2001 attack, physically or emotionally, and that she suffers from severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts. She claims that both Combs and Sherman contacted her periodically over the years and “warned her to be quiet.”

Graves is now the 11th plaintiff to file a civil lawsuit against the hip-hop figure since last fall. In November 2023, singer Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura, an ex-girlfriend of Combs, detailed a decade of alleged abuse, coercion and sex trafficking he endured. Ventura’s shocking lawsuit was settled out of court less than 24 hours after the news broke, but her accusations inspired many others to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct and assault against Combs. Other plaintiffs who have come forward with allegations against him include singer Dawn Richard, choreographer LaurieAnn Gibson and producer Rodney Jones, as well as young women from the early ’90s.

Combs has repeatedly maintained his innocence over the past year, despite the many statements his lawyers have given him. But when a 2016 video surfaced of the disgraced mogul assaulting Ventura in a hotel hallway, he publicly apologized to her on his Instagram account.

In November 2023, around the same time as Ventura’s watershed filing, Graves says she first learned that the mogul had filmed herself and Sherman raping her and showed the video to multiple men in order to humiliate her and her then-boyfriend. At the time of the assault, Sherman was the founder of Rhymes N Dimes Magazine, Inc., and Graves believes the recording of her assault was also distributed as pornography through the bodyguard’s media network. Upon learning of this, Graves relived the attack and developed suicidal thoughts.

While Graves’s is now one of several civil charges, her accusations are the first since Combs was arrested in New York last week on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges. The federal indictment, which alleges that Combs used his record label Bad Boy Entertainment to run a sex trafficking ring for his own gratification, echoes the narratives in many of the civil lawsuits.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges in the indictment and is currently awaiting trial in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Copyright 2024 NPR