In a civil lawsuit filed in New York, Thalia Graves accuses Sean “Diddy” Combs of “brutally raping” her in 2001 at the studios of his production company Bad Boy Records in New York with the help of an accomplice.
A woman broke her silence on Tuesday, September 24, to accuse rapper P. Diddy of rape and announce a civil complaint against him, lengthening the list of alleged victims as the hip hop producer was incarcerated last week.
According to the complaint, Graves was drugged and tied up by her two attackers. The attackers also allegedly recorded the incident on video and circulated it, accusations that echo those made by Manhattan federal prosecutors last week when the musician was arrested.
Many victims
“I’m glad he’s locked up, but it’s only a temporary relief,” Graves said at a news conference announcing her lawsuit at her attorney Gloria Allred’s office in Los Angeles.
“The pain you feel inside when you’ve been sexually assaulted is incredibly deep and difficult to express. It goes far beyond the physical injuries,” she said, saying she is still traumatized by the rape she suffered.
Targeted for several months by a dozen complaints for rape or sexual assault, Sean “Diddy” Combs, an influential figure in hip hop, was arrested on September 16 in a Manhattan hotel and placed in pretrial detention. He pleaded not guilty to charges of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and extortion.
Federal prosecutor Damian Williams described a system based on “violence” to force women to have “long sexual relations with sex workers”, scenes that he “recorded” and during which the victims took substances such as ecstasy, GHB (the date rape drug) or ketamine.
According to the indictment, the rapper relied on his employees, “the resources and influence of the multi-faceted business empire he directed and controlled to create a criminal enterprise whose members engaged in … trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, forced labor, kidnapping, obstruction of justice.”
