Combs’ lawyers offered to post $50 million bail — using his mansion as collateral — in exchange for him being released to house arrest with GPS monitoring. A hearing on the request was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday, a U.S. magistrate judge in Manhattan ordered Combs held without bail.
The hip-hop legend, whose career flourished in the 1990s, was arrested Monday on charges included in an indictment that accuses Combs of using his “power and prestige” to “facilitate sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for prostitution, drug offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.”
It describes the incitement of female victims and male sex workers to take drugs and perform elaborately staged sexual performances which are described as “Freak Offs” Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during and often recorded it. The incidents sometimes lasted several days and required IVs to recover, the indictment said.
It alleges that he coerced and abused women for years, and resorted to blackmail to control his victims, including through recorded videos and shocking acts of violence, all coordinated and facilitated from top to bottom by his network of associates and employees.
Combs’ attorney, Mark Agnifilo, submitted a letter to Judge Andrew L. Carter on Wednesday asking that Combs, 54, be released on conditions including house arrest with GPS monitoring and a ban on all visitors to his residence except family, property caretakers and friends who are not considered co-conspirators.
Combs’ home is on Star Island, a man-made piece of land in Biscayne Bay that is only accessible by bridge or boat. It is one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. Combs’ request is reminiscent of a long line of wealthy defendants who have offered to pay multimillion-dollar bail in exchange for house arrest in luxurious surroundings.
,Sean Combs “He has never in his life run, ducked, avoided or evaded a challenge,” the defense said in a document filed in court. “He won’t start now.”
Combs was expected to again prove himself innocent at his first appearance before Carter.
So far, prosecutors have successfully argued that he poses a danger to the community and a flight risk, so he should be kept in jail until his trial.
Much of what was revealed with the unveiling of the indictment Tuesday was detailed in a lawsuit filed in November by his former girlfriend and protégé, R&B singer Cassie, whose legal name is Cassandra Ventura. The suit was settled the next day, but Combs’ allegations have persisted ever since.
Descriptions of beatings, sexual assaults, silencing tactics and “crazy antics” were repeated throughout the criminal indictment, though it did not name her or any other woman.
Agnifilo, also without naming Ventura but clearly referring to him, argued in the arraignment Tuesday that the entire criminal case was the result of a long-term, troubled but consensual relationship that turned sour because of infidelity.
Agnifilo argued that “freak offs” were an extension of that relationship, not coercive.
“Is this sex trafficking?” Agnifilo asked. “No, if everyone wants to be involved.”
However, prosecutors have described the scope of the case as much larger. They said in court documents that they have questioned more than 50 victims and witnesses and expect this number to grow.
Like many aging hip-hop figures — including several involved in a bicoastal rap feud with the Notorious B.I.G. in the 1990s — Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Records, had cultivated a gentler, more worldly public image. The doting father of seven was a respected international businessman whose annual “White Party” in the Hamptons was once a must-see invitation for the jet-setting elite.
But prosecutors said he used the same companies, people and methods he used to build his business and cultural power to facilitate his crimes. They said they would prove their case with financial, travel and billing records, electronic data and communications and videos of “freak offs.”
The AP typically does not name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Ventura did.
Combs was arrested late Monday night at a Manhattan hotel, nearly six months after federal authorities raided his luxury homes in Los Angeles and Miami in what they said was a sex trafficking investigation.
During the search, law enforcement seized narcotics, videos of “freak offs” and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, according to prosecutors. They said agents also seized firearms and ammunition, including three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers.
The indictment describes Combs as so violent that he caused injuries that often took days or weeks to heal. His employees and associates were sometimes witnesses to his violence and prevented victims from escaping or tracked down those who tried to flee, the indictment says.
A conviction on each charge in the indictment would carry a mandatory 15 years in prison, with the possibility of life imprisonment.
Combs and his lawyers denied similar allegations made by others in lawsuits filed after Ventura’s.
