August Brown and Stacy Perman | (TNS) Los Angeles Times
In the summer of 2004, Tamiko Thomas, a Bad Boy Entertainment executive, brought an aspiring entertainer named Adria English to Sean “Diddy” Combs’ mansion in East Hampton, New York. The rap mogul, bon vivant and tabloid fixture was throwing one of his exclusive, celebrity-filled bacchanals known as a “White Party.”
English claims that Thomas hired her to work as a go-go dancer. But over the next five years, she says, she was forced to participate in “grotesque, inexcusable, exploitative and criminal” activities at multiple White Parties held in various locations, including Combs’ home on Star Island in Miami.
In a recent 114-page lawsuit that she filed against Combs, Thomas and others, English alleges that she was plied with drugs and ecstasy-laced liquor and “passed off” by Thomas and Combs to be “sexually assaulted as part of their ongoing corrupt sex trafficking organization.”
Further, she said in the lawsuit, a team of Combs’ handlers and associates coordinated the alleged activities, including arranging for her travel to and from the soirees, supplying her with illicit narcotics and paying her $1,000 after a sexual encounter.
Once an influential cultural icon, Combs, 54, is now a pariah in the music industry and beyond. He is being held in a federal correctional facility in Brooklyn after a judge ordered him detained until trial following his indictment last month on sex trafficking, racketeering, conspiracy and other charges. Combs has pleaded not guilty. He also has denied the multiple claims of abuse outlined in at least 18 civil sexual misconduct suits filed against him since November.
Combs’ attorneys said in a statement, “Mr. Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defenses, and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone — adult or minor, man or woman.”
Underlying the government’s racketeering case and the multiple lawsuits against Combs is a recurring theme: He did not act alone. Combs’ alleged sexual mistreatment of women going back decades was aided and abetted by a complex and vast network of people that included executives who worked with his various business ventures as well as members of his security team and household staff, according to a Times review of court filings and interviews with current and former Bad Boy executives and associates.
“Combs did not do this all on his own,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, when he announced the charges. “He used his business and employees of that business and other close associates to get his way.”
In recent years, the government has successfully prosecuted powerful figures including R. Kelly and NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere on similar charges to the ones Combs now faces. Yet Combs’ case stands out for the sheer scope of associates that he surrounded himself with to carry out his alleged crimes, experts said.
“It’s the magnitude of it,” says Nancy Erika Smith, a partner at Smith Mullin in …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
