Central figure of hip-hop whose opulent celebrations attracted the gratin of the showbiz, P. Diddy has an appointment with American justice in New York on Monday, accused of having put his empire at the service of a violent and merciless system of sex.
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His real name Sean Combs, the rapper and flagship producer of 55, who has raised a considerable fortune since the 1990s in music, fashion and alcoholic drinks, risks life for life during this trial, one of the most anticipated of the year in the United States.
The founder of Bad Boy Records, who had stars under his wing like the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul Mary J. Blige or the rapper The Notorious Big-murdered in 1997-was tried before the Federal Court of Manhattan for trafficking for sexual exploitation, transport of people for prostitution, as well as acts of abduction, corruption and Criminal corporate indictment.
In prison for eight months and his resounding arrest in Manhattan, he crumbled in parallel under the accusations of sexual violence of more than a hundred women and men in the civil justice.
P. Diddy, also called Puff Daddy or Diddy, claims his innocence and refused an agreement to plead on the accusation, whose details have not been revealed.
Before getting to the heart of the matter, the trial starts at 8:30 a.m. on Monday by selection of the jury, a stage that could take a week.
Filmed scenes
The famous rapper and producer claims to have had only sexual relations. His lawyer Marc Agnifilo spoke of a “swingers” lifestyle.
At the heart of the prosecution, which concern facts that spread over a period from 2004 to 2024, is the organization of sex marathons called “freak-offs”, fueled by taking drugs, and where women were forced to long relations with sex workers.
According to the indictment, Sean Combs “directed” his scenes, sometimes recorded on video and could be threatening or violent to achieve his ends. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Manhattan evokes accomplices without naming them, but Sean Combs will be the only accused.
The case is shaking the American music industry, which has rather escaped the #MeToo wave, with the exception of the fallen star of the R&B R. Kelly, sentenced to 30 years in prison for sexual crimes in 2022.
“I hope that (the trial) will encourage other victims to manifest themselves,” the co -founder of the Sound Off Coalition, which fights against sexual violence in the world of music, Caroline Heldman.
According to her, the music industry is still a world where the effects of fame and power over people are mixed. ” This gives them an empathy deficit, and the feeling that the rules do not apply to them. ”
Aura
Since the 1990s, P. Diddy has been a central figure in the hip-hop of the “East Coast”, which he helped to register in the musical landscape.
Known for his bling-bling image, he used to give sumptuous parties where the gratin of Showbiz was pressed on the Huppée coast of Hamptons, on the big island of Long Island, east of New York. Despite a violent reputation, the native of Harlem, father of seven children, has long kept his aura in the world of hip-hop.
His trial opens, as a symbol, the same day as the famous Gala of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) of New York, a worldly meeting par excellence where he had still climbed the steps in 2023, in the midst of dozens of other celebrities.
The singer of R&B Cassie, who was in a relationship with Diddy, will be one of the most anticipated witnesses. A video broadcast last year by CNN and captured by surveillance cameras had shown Sean Combs unleashed violently against her in 2016 in a hotel in Los Angeles.
Cassie had opened the valves against the winner of several Grammy Awards by fileing a civil complaint in 2023, saying that his former companion had submitted him to more than a decade of violence and rape in 2018.
The case had immediately settled amicably, but it paved the way for a long series of accusations of sexual assault and rape.
