Monday night’s indictment of Sean “Diddy” Combs escalated the rapper and mogul’s legal peril significantly. The charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution followed a high-profile federal investigation, including a raid on Combs’ Los Angeles and Miami homes. Civil suits filed by Combs’ ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and others allege sexual abuse, physical assault and a litany of other disturbing allegations that have tarnished his reputation.
On Tuesday, Combs pleaded not guilty to all charges in the indictment in a federal courtroom in Manhattan. According to the indictment, Combs allegedly used a pattern of coercion, threats and violence to keep victims under his control. How might a relationship — romantic, musical or otherwise — turn into what prosecutors allege to be a violent sex trafficking network run by a rap celebrity? The Times spoke with Lauren Hersh, the national director of the activist group World Without Exploitation and the former chief of the sex trafficking unit at the Kings County district attorney’s office in Brooklyn, about the methods Combs is accused of using to entice and control victims, and what this indictment means about our changing views on how sex trafficking works.
Most people who follow this know about the individual cases of alleged abuse involving Cassie and others. How does the indictment aim to connect several alleged incidents into a pattern of organized trafficking? What we saw .