Carter stated that the government has demonstrated the defendant poses a danger and that the bail package is inadequate, even considering the risk of flight. As a result, Combs’ bail was denied for the second time.
In March 2024, federal authorities conducted raids on Combs’ residences in Holmby Hills, California, and Miami. These raids were reportedly linked to an ongoing investigation into sex trafficking, leading to his arrest several months later.
The raids took place around four months after Combs’ former girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie Ventura, accused him of sex trafficking and abuse. In a lawsuit valued in the millions, she claimed that Combs had drugged and compelled her to engage in sexual activities with other men. They settled the lawsuit the day after it was filed.
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: Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP, File]
