More than 100 people are to sue rap musician Sean \u2018Diddy\u2019 Combs for sexual assault, rape and sexual exploitation, a US lawyer has said.<\/p>\n
Texas-based lawyer Tony Buzbee said that some of the alleged victims include minors who were abused when they were as young as nine years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an important matter that we intend to aggressively pursue,\u201d Mr Buzbee told reporters.<\/p>\n
Erica Wolff, a lawyer representing Mr Combs, said the rapper \u201cemphatically and categorically\u201d denies the allegations, saying they are \u201cfalse and defamatory\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Mr Buzbee said he and his team \u201cwill leave no stone unturned to find potentially liable parties\u201d in the alleged abuse, or \u201cany individual or entity who participated in or benefited from this egregious behaviour\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Wolff said in a statement to the BBC that Mr Combs \u201clooks forward to proving his innocence and vindicating himself in court, where the truth will be established based on evidence, not speculation\u201d.<\/p>\n
The legal action is the latest against Mr Combs.<\/p>\n
Mr Combs was arrested last week and is facing criminal charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. He is currently in federal custody after he was denied bail, which he is appealing.<\/p>\n
He has denied all allegations of criminal wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
According to Mr Buzbee, who is licensed to practice law in Texas and New York, the total number of alleged victims he is representing is 120, with half of them being men and the other half women who hail from more than 25 states across the US.<\/p>\n
He added that 25 of the alleged victims he is representing were minors. This marks the first time that Mr Combs has been accused of sexually abusing children.<\/p>\n
The allegations span between 1991 to as recently as this year with the incidents taking place in Los Angeles, New York and Miami, Mr Buzbee said. He added most of the incidents occurred after 2015.<\/p>\n
Most of the plaintiffs, he said, allege they were date raped after parties hosted by Mr Combs that were held at well-known venues, as well as private residences and hotels.<\/p>\n
Mr Buzbee said the parties were either to mark an album release, or were New Year\u2019s Eve parties and US Independence Day parties. Others occurred at what he said were auditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany times, especially young people wanting to break into the industry, were coerced into this type of conduct in the promise of being made a star or the promise of having Sean Combs listen to their tape,\u201d Mr Buzbee said.<\/p>\n
One man, who was aged nine at the time, alleges he was sexually abused by Mr Combs and his associates at a recording studio in New York while trying to land a record deal, according to his lawyer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHad he not been in power, I feel I could\u2019ve been something great. I quit the industry because of what Sean Combs did to me,\u201d he said in a statement via his lawyer.<\/p>\n
Another man, who was also a minor at the time, alleged he was told by Mr Combs he would be made a \u201cstar\u201d, but he first needed to visit the rapper alone without his parents.<\/p>\n
Once in a private area, his lawyer claimed Mr Combs then requested the boy perform oral sex on him.<\/p>\n
Mr Buzbee also raised the case of a then-15-year-old girl who alleges she was flown to New York for a party hosted by Mr Combs and was subsequently raped by him and others.<\/p>\n
The lawyer claimed there was a clear modus operandi with alleged victims typically being offered \u201claced\u201d drinks before being sexually assaulted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest secret in the entertainment industry has finally been revealed to the world,\u201d Mr Buzbee said. \u201cThe wall of silence has now been broken.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that this is not a class action lawsuit and that there will be individual cases filed for each alleged victim.<\/p>\n
Andrew Van Arsdale, an attorney at the AVA law group which is working with Mr Buzbee, said his firm had received more than 3,000 phone calls from people alleging abuse by the music mogul.<\/p>\n
In addition to the 120 alleged victims, he said his firm were working to vet another 100 cases.<\/p>\n
The post Diddy faces over 100 allegations including victims who were 9<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post Diddy faces over 100 allegations including victims who were 9<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More than 100 people are to sue rap musician Sean \u2018Diddy\u2019 Combs for sexual assault, rape and sexual exploitation, a US lawyer has said. Texas-based lawyer Tony Buzbee said that some of the alleged victims include minors who were abused when they were as young as nine years old. \u201cThis is an important matter that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}