In a recent criminal indictment, Sean “Diddy” Combs was charged with smuggling at least three women as part of a 20-year sexual abuse conspiracy.
The rapper, better known as P Diddy and Puff Daddy, was accused by prosecutors on Thursday of transporting three female victims and commercial sex workers both domestically and abroad.
Combs’ ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura, also called Cassie, is one of the victims.
He is accused with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and transportation to participate in prostitution in the recently filed indictment from New York. The new indictment does not include any new counts.
The trial for Combs, 55, is scheduled to begin on May 5. He entered a not guilty plea to the initial indictment against him last year, which only included one female victim, and denies all accusations.
Since his arrest in September, the entrepreneur has been held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, where he was refused bail of $50 million (£37.8 million).
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As part of the alleged abuse, women were made to take part in recorded sexual performances called “freak offs” with male sex workers who were sometimes transported across state lines.
Last year, CNN broadcast a video of Combs kicking, shoving and dragging Cassie in a hotel hallway. He then apologised.
Marc Agnifilo, Combs’ lawyer, has said the rapper never denied assaulting Cassie but said that the video was not evidence of sex trafficking.
The lawyer has also argued that the “freak offs” described by prosecutors were consensual sexual activity.
