Sean Combs, the rapper and mogul known as Diddy, has been accused of sexual assault in two new lawsuits, following another he settled last week with his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, aka Cassie.
The first, by Joi Dickerson-Neal, alleges that Combs attacked her in 1991 and inflicted “serious and lifelong injuries… as a result of being drugged, assaulted and sexually abused, and of being ‘victimized’ of “revenge porn” that Sean Combs or “P. Diddy created and distributed.” A representative for Combs called the claims “made up and not credible…purely a money grab.”
Dickerson-Neal was a college student who had previously appeared in a Diddy music video. He invited her to a dinner in New York which she attended “reluctantly” and where she alleges that he drugged her, then sexually assaulted her: “Because she had been drugged, the plaintiff did not have the physical or mental capacity to fend off Combs. She also alleges that Combs filmed the sexual encounter and showed it to acquaintances, leading to her being hospitalized for depression.
Dickerson-Neal’s lawyers said she was pressured into making the allegations after Ventura made his own. Ventura alleged multiple assaults over the course of a decade, describing “a cycle of abuse, violence and sex trafficking.” Combs denied the allegations, and the two men reached an out-of-court settlement the next day.
Rolling Stone reports Another lawsuit was filed by an anonymous woman, listed in the complaint as Jane Doe, who alleges that Combs and musician Aaron Hall raped her and a friend in 1990 or 1991, after the women was invited back to Hall’s apartment following a music industry event. Doe said Combs “coerced” her into having sex, then “Hall burst into the room, cornered her and forced Jane Doe to have sex with him.” Doe says her friend, who is not involved in the case, claimed she “was forced to have sex with Combs and Hall in another room.”
Doe alleges that Combs went to where the two women were staying a few days later and physically assaulted her, “choking Jane Doe to the point that she passed out,” according to the lawsuit. The woman says she then sought medical treatment “to heal from the trauma.”
Combs and Hall have not yet responded to the lawsuit. The Guardian has contacted representatives of each for comment.
Both lawsuits were filed using New York State’s Adult Survivors Act. Normally, the incidents in the early 1990s would have occurred too long ago to meet the statute of limitations on civil lawsuits, but the law, passed in 2022, created a one-year window during which those limitations have been lifted.
That window closes on Friday, meaning numerous lawsuits have been filed in recent days, including against powerful men in the music industry. Producer and mogul Jimmy Iovine, founder of Interscope and hit headphone brand Beats, has been accused of sexual abuse and harassment by an unnamed woman, with his lawyers saying they are “shocked and bewildered” by the claim. Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose has been accused of a violent 1989 sexual assault against model Sheila Kennedy, with his lawyers calling the allegations “fictitious”.
Other lawsuits this week outside the music industry include those filed against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, comedian Bill Cosby, actor Jamie Foxx and fashion photographer Terry Richardson.
