On Tuesday, Sean “Diddy” Combs’ lawyers filed a motion to have a federal sex trafficking charge dropped — claiming the law applied in this case is “racist” and has “not been utilized against any white people.”
Combs lawyers said the Mann Act — which prohibits the transport of a person “with [the] intent that such individual engage in prostitution” — stems from racism and is being used against a “prominent Black man” who used escort services to have male escorts cross state lines to have sex with his girlfriends. According to The New York Times, the defense also asked the courts whether this federal law was ever used to prosecute a white person.
In their motion, Combs’ lawyers stated that the Mann Act was passed in 1910 and disproportionately used to target Black men. They noted that Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight champion, was convicted under the law for transporting a white woman across state lines.
“Mr. Combs has been singled out because he is a powerful Black man, and he is being prosecuted for conduct that regularly goes unpunished. What was racist in its inception has often been racist in its operation,” they wrote, according to Vibe.
On September 16, 2024, Combs was arrested outside a Manhattan hotel on federal charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs has been denied bail twice, as Judge Andrew L. Carter determined there was a “serious risk” of witness tampering in this case. Combs’ legal team sought home detention with GPS monitoring. In exchange, they offered to post $50 million bail and to use Combs’ home as collateral.
“The government has proven the defendant is a danger. The bail package is insufficient even on risk of flight,” Carter said while denying Combs’ bail a second time.
In March 2024, federal authorities raided Combs’ homes in Holmby Hills, California, and Miami. Reports indicated that the raid was connected to an ongoing sex trafficking investigation that resulted in his arrest months later.
The reported raids also occurred four months after his ex-girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie Ventura, accused him of sex trafficking and abuse. In a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, she alleged that Combs drugged her and forced her to have sex with other men. The pair settled the lawsuit a day after its filing.
However, in May, a video surfaced showing Combs assaulting Ventura at a California hotel in 2016. After the video was released, Combs put out a video expressing remorse for his behavior. That video is mentioned in the criminal charges filed this week against Combs.
Two more accusers came forward a week after Ventura’s lawsuit. One of the women claimed Combs drugged and raped her at Syracuse University in New York in 1991. Combs denied those allegations before a third accuser, Liza Gardner, levied similar allegations against him.
In that case, Gardner claimed Combs and singer-songwriter Aaron Hall drugged and raped her and a friend following an Uptown Records event in 1990. Gardner said she was 16 at the time of the incident. She also accused Combs of choking her a day after the assault
Days after footage of the 2016 assault was publicized, two more women filed lawsuits against Combs. One of those women was April Lampros, a New York Fashion Institute of Technology student who reportedly met Combs in 1994. Lampros accused Combs of sexually assaulting her on four instances between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s.
Lampros claimed Combs promised to mentor her and connect her with executives in the fashion industry. Instead, Combs allegedly forced her to drink before raping her in a hotel room. Lampros recalled another instance in which Combs forced her to perform oral sex on her in a parking garage while a parking attendant watched.
Combs has been accused of committing or facilitating sexual abuse in at least 30 other lawsuits — including one, filed in October, which alleges he and Jay-Z raped a 13-year-old girl in New York in 2000. Most recently, Jay-Z filed for the lawsuit to be dismissed.
Combs’ federal trial is set to begin in May.
[Feature Photo: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File]
