Bad Boy Entertainment
The Utter Debauchery of Sean Combs aka P Diddy
Sean Combs, who has a laundry list of professional names including Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, got arrested September 16, 2024 on federal charges. The operative term here is “federal” charges. As a general rule, the feds do not come after anyone unless they have a completely locked-down case. That’s why they often sit on the sidelines (which in Combs’ case they did for 16 years) until all of their ducks are in a row. Pew Research found that of the 79,704 federal cases brought to court in 2019, fewer than 1% of defendants won their case. That means the feds win 99% of the time.
These are serious charges. You have better odds beating the slot machines in Las Vegas than winning a case against the feds.
Most people who wind up in court are brought in on charges made at the state level, since state attorneys general and state prosecutors are much more reckless about their statistics. Take Jack Smith, the Mar-A-Lago document lawyer—he wasn’t even authorized as a special prosecutor (meaning a slam-dunk reversible error on appeal) but he still brought the case. Why? Because Jack Smith didn’t care if he lost, his job was only to bring the charges. No district attorneys or attorneys general have a 99% conviction rate. Not even close.
State charges can go any which way, and sometimes state legal eagles bring charges just to make headlines, get themselves elected (or get a gig on The View), pander to the public, or serve their overlords who got them into office and could get them into a better job soon. Not mentioning any names, but the initials Letitia James come to mind—she ran for office in New York on a platform that promised “to get Trump.” She didn’t say for what or how, she just promised to harass a citizen.
The feds are different. And because they have the Perry Mason syndrome—they always win their case, about 90% of people hit with federal charges plead guilty. Nobody wants to fight the feds, it’s like sticking your hand into a wood chipper. The feds are so efficient at building perfect cases that they rarely have to see the inside of the court room. If things follow the typical course, the feds have been negotiating with Combs for about six weeks by now and Combs will flip on a lot of hotshots.
Sometimes they call these negotiations “king for a day,” because the defendant Combs has some leverage now to negotiate at least certain concessions or benefits to himself in return for naming names. And since nobody is showing up to fill Combs’s commissary account or see him on visiting day, he likely is not feeling too warm and fuzzy about his old friends. And his old friends may include just about everyone in celebrity-land: musicians, actors, politicians, rich guys.
The indictment was just unsealed and it lists serious charges: kidnapping, sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse, physical assault, and holding frequent parties called “freak offs.” These events sometimes involved transporting sex workers to attend what were described as elaborate, choreographed studies in raw debauchery; celebrities attended and some if not all of the activities were videotaped. Combs could have given Caligula lessons on being a sleaze.
For one thing, Combs drugged some of his unwitting participants. Not only were drugs freely used during “freak-offs,” Combs sometimes secretly spiked drinks. And remember all those bottles of alleged “baby oil”? It has been speculated that they might have contained the club date-rape drug GHB, a drug that can cause euphoria (at first), enhance libido, promote a loss of awareness, and induce amnesia. GHB stands for gamma hydroxybutyrate and it’s a controlled substance. Although it’s available mainly on the street as a powder, it could have been mixed with oil. Note that right now this is just speculation.
Combs also threatened people into attending his “freak offs” by offering to advance or suppress their careers, to attack them physically, or to cause some kind of “arson.” I’m not sure what the indictment meant by that but it sounds like if you didn’t RSVP to a “freak off,” you ran the risk that Combs or one of his henchmen would burn your house down.
Legally, it’s all set up as a RICO case (racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations act) meaning that Combs ran a criminal enterprise via his entertainment businesses. The showcase Combs business was the aptly named Bad Boy Entertainment.
RICO cases are difficult to try, hard to prove, but can hit a defendant with multiple serious charges.
Combs is being held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, the only federal jail in the state of New York. While it’s been described as a horrific and substandard detention center, it has housed celebrity-criminals, such as Jeffrey Epstein, R. Kelly, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Sam Bankman-Fried. This place is so bad that a lot of people who go in, don’t come out alive. I’m not just talking about Epstein. Just this summer, two inmates were stabbed to death. In fact, Combs has already had his attorneys file complaints about the dangerous living conditions at the prison.
Despite Combs’ aberrant, disgusting, and super-sized lifestyle, he had a singer-girlfriend named Casandra Ventura. (Combs also dated Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz, Kim Porter, Naomi Campbell—the list goes on and on.) Ventura had an on-again, off-again relationship with Combs and she was signed to his record label. Those two events are probably cause-and-effect. Long before Combs’ current legal predicament, a video was released showing that Combs attacked Ventura violently in a hotel, kicking her in the head and grabbing her by the hair so he could drag her down the hallway. During this altercation—which was caught on a hotel video camera—Combs was clothed just in a towel around his waist. It is hard to say what they were fighting about, but on November 16, 2023, Ventura hit Combs with a lawsuit that alleged he gave her drugs, forced her to have sex with other men, and beat her “savagely.” Given the video evidence and what was generally known about Combs, this seemed pretty credible, although Combs denied the allegations.
In what might be the greatest rush-to-judgment in the history of American jurisprudence (where cases can languish for years), the suit was settled the very next day. On November 17, 2023, Combs and Ventura reached a confidential settlement. Cassie Ventura more or less disappeared, probably dragging off a big bag of money.
I believe a lot of other Combs victims figured if Combs had his checkbook out, they were going to come forward as well. At least two other lawsuits followed and we don’t know how many other potential accusers came forward and either took a check to keep quiet or were intimidated. Let’s just say a lot of people wanted to see some of that Bad Boy Entertainment cash.
By November 28, 2023, Combs had to step down as chairman of Revolt, which was his cable TV network. His business started to unravel. Despite his attempts to lay low, on December 6, 2023, an unnamed woman said that Combs and two other men gave her drugs and alcohol before raping her when she was 17.
It's like the old Texas proverb about being caught in a field during a hailstorm: “can’t run, can’t hide, can’t make it stop.”
On February 26, 2024 another lawsuit gets filed, this time by a man. This music producer said he was assaulted by Combs and forced to have sexual encounters with prostitutes. Later that spring—on March 25, 2024, Combs had a visit from Homeland Security who simultaneously raided both of his homes in Los Angeles and Miami to gather evidence relating to the sex trafficking charges.
You can see this has been a bad year for Combs. Now they come after his kids. On April 4, 2004, a suit was filed by a woman who worked on one of Combs’ yachts and alleged that Combs’ son Christian sexually assaulted her.
Before this list of accusations gets too tedious, in April and May 2024 the Combs organization started to push back a little and filed a few weak motions, alleging procedural violations. For instance, Combs did not deny raping the 17-year-old, but he did ask the court to dismiss her suit because too much time had passed.
Remember Cassie Ventura getting beat up in a hotel hallway and settling with Combs? That video did not go public until May 17, 2024. It was aired by CNN, which generally tends to favor celebrity criminals. Combs attacked Ventura in Los Angeles, but neither the city nor the state of California filed any charges. Of course, if Los Angeles starts arresting every celebrity thug in Hollywood, they’d have to work a lot of overtime.
Combs made a social media apology for the Ventura assault on May 19, 2024 and even said he was going to get therapy. He invoked the name of God, thanking Him for His mercy and grace. (Remember, the Ventura event took place about six months earlier and was settled… Combs was doing damage control.)(
This whole time, Combs knew that the feds were building a case. California was not going to do anything, but the feds had a team of lawyers drafting legal documents. On September 5, 2024, Combs went to Manhattan and checked into a posh hotel, allegedly awaiting indictment. It is not clear why Combs did not simply turn himself in. On September 16, 2024, the feds came to his hotel and arrested him. He did not resist. He was also not smart enough to get rid of the cocaine in his room but considering the hundreds of very heinous charges against him, a little cocaine on the nightstand might not have made much difference.
The charges are bad: sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate commerce for the purposes of prostitution, drug crimes, kidnapping, bribery, obstruction of justice, and arson. They sent Al Capone to Alcatraz for much less.
Combs has pleaded not guilty and, in our system, that’s what he is until it is proven otherwise. These are all allegations. But remember, when the feds bring charges, they win 99% of the time.
It can be anticipated that the federal government and Combs are playing “let’s make a deal” at the moment. If even a portion of these many charges can be sustained, Combs is potentially facing life in prison. But perhaps he is willing to name some names or turn over some videos. I am not too optimistic, since we never saw any of the miles and miles of Epstein videos, but I have to believe that there is some kind of negotiation going on.
Some say that Combs may meet a fate like that of Epstein, where an inconvenient person who knows too much just gets dispatched into the hereafter. The prison put him on suicide watch, which could be a genuine protective move or it could be a set-up to convince us that Combs entered the federal prison in a suicidal state of mind. His suicide watch has since been lifted, but I think it is safe to say that Combs is not in a good place.
Some people are nervous. Usher and Pink, both well known single-name musicians have scrubbed their social media accounts. Usher lived with Combs for about a year when Usher was just 13 years old. He got his musical career started there—but at what price? It is well known that Usher ran in Combs’s circles. Pink, on the other hand, has no obvious ties to Combs, but she seems kind of nervous. She said she deleted her social media because social media is not good for a person’s mental health—but it might have been more convincing if she’d not said it on social media.
We’ve seen images of Justin Bieber, who was once handed over to Combs for something like 48 unsupervised hours—while he was a young teenager.
It is hard to say what will happen next, since most of the people in Sean Combs’ orbit are Democrats or Democrat-adjacent and that group tends never to go to prison. On the other hand, this things has tentacles that reach deep into the elitist power centers.
Combs’ attorneys are gearing up for a hail Mary, because they say they want to go to trial. Going to trial seems an odd move.
But perhaps his attorneys are going to argue something that like the “victim-offender overlap.” In cases of sex trafficking, people may start out as the victims but wind up committing crimes themselves later on. For instance, Combs may have abused a child and over time, that child may have grown up and recruited other children to the Combs network. Would that former child be a victim? Or a perpetrator?
This occurred in the Epstein and Maxwell case where young girls who were at first victims of Epstein later worked with Maxwell to recruit their friends to be future victims. It also occurred in the old Patty Hearst trial where she was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army only to participate later on in some of their criminal activities (she got convicted).
In early 2021, another rap superstar, R. Kelly, was sentenced to 30 years for sex trafficking in a RICO case that has some similarities to the Combs case. In 2023, R. Kelly just got another 20 years for enticement of a minor and other disgusting crimes against children. Like Combs, Kelly was charged by the feds. Like 99% of all other cases, the feds prevailed in court.
The main difference between Combs and Kelly at the moment, besides where they are in their trajectory hurtling toward disaster, is that Kelly’s case was heard in Illinois and he is serving his time in North Carolina. Combs is going to face trial in New York.
While no one can predict the future, it seems plausible that the celebrities who attended the freak offs are going to get buried, one way or another. The question is: are the feds going to just bury these allegations so these criminals can just walk free? Or are the feds going to bury them with their own indictments? Will we one day see Jenny from the Cell Block?
Combs knew everybody. He made a movie with Russell Brand. He’s been photographed with Donald Trump. He once entertained Prince Harry. While Bishop T. D. Jakes is not accused of anything, he too was acquainted with Combs. Back on April 10, 2020, Kamala Harris sent out a tweet to Combs, thanking him for hosting one of her town hall meetings. This cannot be confirmed. but it appears that Combs may have contributed to the Harris campaign; however, just because a criminal contributes to a politician doesn’t mean the politician is a criminal. Harris has yet to comment one way or the other on the Sean Combs case.
Of course, she hasn’t really said what she’d do about the border or the economy, either.
The FBI and other agencies have launched an “interagency operation” at the jail in Manhattan housing Combs. Combs’ attorneys have filed complaints about the prison, including violence and poor living conditions, but it is not clear why the federal agencies convened on the prison. No details were provided. Was this unusual federal “raid” on a prison related to the impending Combs’ trial?
Combs’s main trial is set for May 2025. He has been denied bail twice but is filing for bail again this November 4, 2024.
Now factor in a potential Trump victory and a Trump-controlled Department of Justice. Hmmm.