The ganngster thing is coming due…..
It took just one day for Sean Combs to settle a bombshell lawsuit in November that accused him of rape and physical abuse. For a moment, it may have seemed that the hip-hop mogul’s lawyers had managed to quickly contain the reputational damage he faced.
But it turns out that Mr. Combs’s problems were only beginning.
For years, accusations of violence trailed Mr. Combs, who since the 1990s has been known as Puff Daddy and Diddy. The accusations had little impact, however, on his public persona as a raffish celebrity who was a fixture in gossip columns, a personal brand crystallized by the name of his music label: Bad Boy. But the suit in November, filed by his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura — who makes music as the singer Cassie — seemed to open the floodgates.
A string of other lawsuits followed, accusing him of various forms of sexual assault and misconduct. Mr. Combs, 54, has vehemently denied all the allegations, but the graphic and detailed complaint by Ms. Ventura — and the headlines that followed — changed that narrative to a degree that now imperils Mr. Combs’s business empire and has made him a pariah in the music industry. And a raid by federal authorities at two of his homes on Monday suggested that authorities are considering possible criminal charges.
As the allegations against Mr. Combs have accumulated, his lucrative business dealings — which, besides music, have included fashion, two liquor brands, a cable television channel and an e-commerce platform — have been threatened. And the employee ranks at Combs Global, his company, are now a fraction of what they were less than a year ago….
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In recent months, federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York have been quietly leading an investigation, conducting interviews with potential witnesses about accusations of sexual assault by Mr. Combs, according to a person familiar with the interviews.
That led to the raids on Mr. Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach by federal officers, who were seen removing computers and other electronic devices. Mr. Combs was also stopped at an airport in the Miami area, apparently on his way to the Bahamas with members of his family. Officers there took a number of devices from Mr. Combs, though he was not arrested, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. A lawyer for Mr. Combs, Aaron Dyer, called the raids an “excessive show of force” that would result in a “premature rush to judgment of Mr. Combs.”
It’s been a stunning change for Mr. Combs, who as recently as late 2023 was being honored for his three-decade career as a producer, music executive and showman. As hip-hop celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, he was heralded as a business innovator, collecting a global icon honor at the MTV Video Music Awards…..