Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested Monday in New York amid a federal sex-trafficking probe, sources told The Times.
No details were immediately available about the charges against him. A grand jury had been impaneled to investigate allegations. He has strongly denied any wrongdoing.
Sources said Combs was arrested without incident at a New York hotel, where he had been living.
“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” said Combs’ attorney Marc Agnifilo in a statement. “Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community.”
The attorney said Combs was “an imperfect person but he is not a criminal. To his credit Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”
Homeland Security Investigations agents conducted searches on March 25 on mansions owned by the Bad Boy Entertainment co-founder as part of a federal inquiry into sex-trafficking allegations involving the hip-hop mogul and entrepreneur, law enforcement sources said.
The 17,000-square-foot mansion in Holmby Hills where Combs debuted his LP “The Love Album: Off the Grid” was flooded with agents, who served a search warrant and gathered evidence on behalf of an investigation being run by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, according to law enforcement officials familiar with the inquiry.
Aaron Dyer, an attorney for Diddy, described “a gross overuse of military-level force” back in March as the search warrants were executed.
“This unprecedented ambush — paired with an advanced, coordinated media presence — leads to a premature rush to judgment of Mr. Combs and is nothing more than a witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits. There has been no finding of criminal or civil liability with any of these allegations,” he said in a statement at the time.
Sources close to the music icon, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said in March that it appeared investigators searching Combs’ L.A. home had emptied safes, dismantled electronics and left papers strewn in some rooms.
Days before the raid, Combs was scheduled to depart by plane for a spring break vacation with his school-age daughters but opted to delay the trip after learning of the search, the sources said. Homeland Security agents did not detain Combs at an executive airport in Miami, but they did stop a plane on the ground, they said.
At the same time as the raids, Miami police arrested Brendan Paul, a former Syracuse University basketball player who was described in a lawsuit against Combs as a confidant and drug “mule.” Miami-Dade police took Paul, 25, into custody on suspicion of possession of cocaine and a controlled substance-laced candy, records show.
In May, Paul struck a deal with prosecutors that will allow him to avoid jail time in exchange for the completion of a drug diversion program, People reported.
Later that month federal prosecutors began preparing grand jury subpoenas for witnesses to testify in the sex-trafficking investigation against him, according to a source familiar with the matter, and investigators interviewed several witnesses and told them to be prepared to testify.
Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.
