A woman has sued Sean “Diddy” Combs in New York federal court, alleging he and his bodyguard drugged, bound and violently raped her decades ago then later showed video of the attack to others.
The lawsuit was filed by attorney Gloria Allred, one of the nation’s best-known litigators in sexual abuse cases, on behalf of Thalia Graves, the former girlfriend of a business associate of Combs, who says she was attacked in 2001. It comes a week after federal prosecutors in New York unsealed an indictment against Combs on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and prostitution.
With the 54-year-old mogul in federal custody since his arrest Sept. 16, the woman becomes the 11th person to accuse Combs of sexual assault in civil litigation since his former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, sued him last year.
The Times does not typically name accusers in sexual assault cases unless they come forth publicly, as Ventura and Graves have.
Graves sued Combs, the mogul’s security head Joseph Sherman, Bad Boy Entertainment and various companies in the Combs empire for sexual assault and emotional distress, accusing Combs and Sherman of “mercilessly raping her” in 2001.
Combs’ legal team could not be immediately reached for comment. In the past, he has denied any wrongdoing.
According to Graves’ lawsuit, she became friendly with Combs in 1999 through her then-boyfriend, who worked for him as an executive at Bad Boy Entertainment. She would frequently attend recording sessions and one day in 2001, Combs asked to meet with her to “discuss her boyfriend’s supposed performance issues.”
A few hours later, according to the lawsuit, Combs arrived at her mother’s home in Queens “with Sherman, who was employed by Combs as his bodyguard at the time. Sherman was driving an SUV and Combs was in the backseat. After Plaintiff entered the vehicle, Combs offered her a glass of wine, which she accepted.”
The lawsuit alleges she was given a drink “likely laced with a drug that eventually caused her to briefly lose consciousness.” She alleges that she awoke to find herself “bound and restrained.”
The lawsuit then alleges Combs and Sherman “brutally sexually assaulted her” and that Joseph slammed her into a table and forced her to perform oral sex and both men were undeterred by her cries for help.
Sherman could not be reached for immediate comment.
Allred, in the lawsuit, alleges the woman “had suicidal thoughts and ideation and has received extensive psychological treatment because of Defendants’ attack.”
“For decades, she remained silent and did not report the crime out of fear that Defendants would use their power to ruin her life, as they had repeatedly, explicitly threatened to do. To this day, Plaintiff suffers from severe depression, anxiety, and panic attacks, and still lives in fear of Defendants.”
Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and Sean “Diddy” Combs on the red carpet at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills in 2017.
(Chris Pizzello / Invision/AP)
The suit says any progress in her healing was dealt a “dramatically reversed on or around November 27, 2023, when she learned for the first time that Combs and Sherman had video-recorded the horrific rape twenty-two years before and had shown the video to multiple men, seeking to publicly degrade and humiliate both Plaintiff and her boyfriend.”
“This video was made available for sale,” Allred said.
She added that Thalia has suffered emotionally and physically, which continues to this day.
“The internal pain of being sexually assaulted has been hard … it goes beyond just physical harm..” Graves said at a news conference Tuesday. “I was already going through a divorce at the time of the assault and did not get the support I needed. I was always faced with disbelief and judgment.”
Since the attack, her relationships have been strained and at times she’s felt “worthless, isolated and sometimes responsible” for what happened, she said.
The woman said she met Combs when she was living in Queens.
Combs has been the subject of a sweeping federal probe since at least the beginning of the year and was arrested in New York last week.
Prosecutors unsealed their indictment against Combs on Sept. 17 He pleaded not guilty and was denied bail during two hearings.
The indictment alleges that Combs and his associates lured female victims, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship. Combs then allegedly used force, threats of force, coercion and drugs to get them to engage in sex acts with male prostitutes in what Combs referred to as “freak offs.”
The encounters, which prosecutors said sometimes lasted for days, were elaborate productions that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during and often recorded, according to the indictment. Prosecutors allege in a detention memo filed in court that the sex performances occurred regularly from at least 2009 through this year and that the hotel rooms where they were staged often sustained significant damage.
A search of Combs’ homes in March turned up drugs, guns, and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant his staff would stock in hotel rooms for the freak offs, according to the indictment.
In an incident caught on video, Ventura, identified only as Victim 1 in the indictment, is seen running down a hallway of the InterContinental Hotel in Century City during one of the freak offs before Combs catches up to her, repeatedly strikes her and throws a vase at her.
A frame grab taken from hotel security camera video and aired by CNN appears to show Sean “Diddy” Combs attacking singer Cassie (Hotel Security Camera Video/CNN via AP)
(AP)
More than 50 witnesses and 300 warrants have been served by federal authorities since last fall, when Ventura, known as Cassie, filed a sexual abuse and trafficking lawsuit against the mogul and Combs settled with a significant payout within 24 hours.