Sean Combs, the rapper and mogul known as Diddy, has been accused of sexual assault in two new lawsuits, after another he settled last week with former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, AKA Cassie.
The first, from Joi Dickerson-Neal, alleges Combs attacked her in 1991 and inflicted “substantial and lifetime injuries … as a result of being drugged, sexually assaulted and abused, and being the victim of ‘revenge porn’ that Sean Combs or ‘P. Diddy’ created and distributed”. A representative for Combs has called the claims “made up and not credible … purely a money grab”.
Dickerson-Neal was a university student who had previously appeared in a Diddy music video. He invited her to dinner in New York which she attended “reluctantly” and where she alleges he drugged her, and then later sexually assaulted her: “Because she had been drugged, Plaintiff lacked the physical ability or mental capacity to fend Combs off.” She also alleges Combs filmed the sexual encounter and showed it to acquaintances, causing her to be subsequently hospitalised with depression.
Lawyers for Dickerson-Neal said she was moved to make the allegations after Ventura made hers. Ventura alleged multiple assaults over the span of a decade, describing “a cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking”. Combs denied the allegations and the pair made an out of court settlement the following day which each described as amicable.
Rolling Stone reports another lawsuit has been filed by an unnamed woman, listed in the suit as Jane Doe, who alleges Combs and musician Aaron Hall raped her and a friend in 1990 or 1991, after the women were invited back to Hall’s apartment following a music industry event. Doe said Combs “coerced” her into having sex, and afterwards “Hall barged into the room, pinned her down and forced Jane Doe to have sex with him.” Doe says her friend, who is not involved in the filing, claimed she “had been forced to have sex with Combs and Hall in another room”.
Doe alleges that Combs visited where the pair of women were staying a couple of days later, and physically assaulted her, “choking Jane Doe to the point that she passed out”, the lawsuit alleges. The woman says she later sought medical treatment “to heal from the trauma”.
Combs and Hall have not yet responded to the lawsuit. The Guardian has contacted representatives for each for comment.
The pair of lawsuits have been filed thanks to the Adult Survivors Act in New York state. Normally incidents occurring in the early 1990s would have happened too long ago to meet the statute of limitations placed on civil lawsuits, but the act, passed in 2022, created a year-long window where those limitations were lifted.
That window closes on Friday, meaning that numerous lawsuits have been filed in recent days, including a number against powerful men in the music industry. Producer and mogul Jimmy Iovine, founder of Interscope and the successful Beats headphone brand, was accused of sexual abuse and harassment by an unnamed woman, with his lawyers saying they were “shocked and baffled” by the claim. Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose was accused of a violent sexual assault in 1989 against a model, Sheila Kennedy, with his lawyers describing the allegations as “fictional”.
Other lawsuits this week outside the music industry include ones made against New York City mayor Eric Adams, comedian Bill Cosby, actor Jamie Foxx and fashion photographer Terry Richardson.
