Sean “Diddy” Combs will stay locked up in an infamous New York federal jail on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges after his attorney’s request to have him put on house arrest with a $50-million bond failed. U.S.
District Court Judge Andrew L. Carter said Wednesday that a bail package that would have kept the hip-hop mogul under house arrest in his Star Island mansion in Miami — with security and no access to cellphones, internet or women apart from his family — was insufficient to release him pending trial. Combs has been the subject of a sweeping federal probe since at least the beginning of the year and was arrested in New York on Monday.
He arrived at the courthouse Wednesday from his cell at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. The facility, which has housed inmates including R. Kelly, Michael Cohen and Jeffrey Epstein, has a history of violence and squalid conditions .
Prosecutors unsealed their indictment against Combs on Tuesday, charging him with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. He pleaded not guilty and was denied bail during that hearing as well. 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 controlled substances to get them to engage in sex acts with male prostitutes in what Combs referred to as “freak offs.” Combs is accused of giving the women keta.