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Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York said.
He was arrested in the lobby of a hotel in New York City, according to a person familiar with the situation, who described him as caught off-guard by the apprehension. Combs had been living at the hotel for several weeks, a person with knowledge of the investigation said.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams confirmed in a statement that on Monday evening, federal agents had arrested Combs, based on a sealed indictment filed by the Southern District of New York.
“We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” Williams said.
Combs’ attorney Marc Agnifilo expressed disappointment in a statement. He said Combs, 54, had been cooperative with the investigation and “voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges.”
“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 statement said. “He is an imperfect person but he is not a criminal.”
“These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court,” it added.
It was not immediately clear on what charges Combs, the rapper-turned-music mogul, was arrested.
Combs has faced a wave of lawsuits — one as recent as last week — accusing him of sexual assault and misconduct since November, when former girlfriend Casandra Ventura sued him in federal court, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse.
Ventura, who is best known by her stage name, Cassie, was once signed to Combs’ Bad Boy record label. The two settled her lawsuit a day after it was filed, without disclosing the terms of the settlement. An attorney for Combs said the settlement was not an acknowledgment of wrongdoing. He previously denied the allegations.
Since then, a number of others have sued, including Dawn Richard, who alleged he groped and threatened her when she was employed by him from 2005 to 2012, and that she witnessed him brutally beat Ventura. Combs has vehemently denied the accusations in the lawsuits, saying they were “sickening allegations” from people looking for “a quick payday.”
But in May, after CNN released hotel surveillance video of Combs kicking, punching and throwing Ventura on the floor in a hotel hallway in Los Angeles in 2016, he apologized in a video posted to Instagram in which he said his behavior was “inexcusable” and that he had sought therapy. The video was later removed from his page.
Richard, who was a member of the girl group Danity Kane, which Combs formed on the MTV reality competition “Making the Band,” and later the group Diddy — Dirty Money, sued Combs last week.
He is regarded as a trailblazer of hip-hop, fashion and media, having created the Sean John clothing line and launched the Revolt TV channel. Combs’ net worth has been estimated at $1 billion.
An attorney said then that Combs was “shocked and disappointed” by Richard’s lawsuit.
In March, federal investigators searched Combs’ homes in Miami and Los Angeles.
Investigators interviewed several people in relation to allegations of sex trafficking, sexual assault and the solicitation and distribution of illegal narcotics and firearms, a source familiar with the investigation told NBC News in March.
The warrant to search Combs’ properties came from the Southern District of New York, NBC News has reported.
Combs, who has also gone by such names as Puffy, Puffy Daddy and Love, founded Bad Boy in the early 1990s.
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