Diddy’s Indictment Is A Warning To The Music Industry

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Sean “Diddy” Combs’ countless abuse and sexual assault allegations caught up to him on Monday after he was arrested and charged following a grand jury indictment. Though he pleaded not guilty to three federal counts of sex trafficking and racketeering the following day (he’s in detention pending trial after being denied bail twice), the damage is done in the court of public opinion.

After the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York unsealed Combs’ indictment early Tuesday morning, social media wasted no time cherry-picking the most searing details — most notably the narcotics and 1,000+ bottles of baby oil and lubricant that law enforcement seized during the March raids on Combs’ properties, which were allegedly intended for his abusive sex parties, aka “freak-offs.”

The shocking information and other parts of the indictment became another point of scrutiny for Combs after his 2017 rebrand as Brother Love failed to conceal the darkest parts of his alleged disturbing behavior behind closed doors.

The U.S. attorney’s indictment of Combs appears to bolster what many have alleged about the now-disgraced music mogul for years, with alarming claims of violence and abuse going back as far as 1990.

The beginning of Combs’ end began on Nov. 16, 2023, when his ex-girlfriend and former record company artist Casandra “Cassie” Ventura filed a bombshell civil lawsuit under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, accusing the Bad Boy Records founder of sex trafficking, rape, physical violence, intimidation and more over a period of 10 years. Combs and Ventura settled the suit just one day later. The latter’s public claims started a domino effect in the months following when seven more women and two men — including Combs’ former producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones and another former label artist, Dawn Richard of Danity Kane and Diddy — Dirty Money — to come forward with their harrowing accusations about Combs, all of whom claimed to at some point have been assaulted, abused or threatened by him.

But Combs isn’t the only high-profile figure in the music industry whose alleged misdeeds have been exposed recently.

Shortly before Ventura filed her lawsuit last November, former music executive Drew Dixon filed a lawsuit against famed producer L.A. Reid, claiming that he harassed and sexually assaulted her twice in 2001 while she was working for him (Reid’s request to have the case thrown out was denied in August). In June, producer The-Dream was hit with a sexual assault lawsuit; his former protégé Chanaaz Mangroe accused him of rape, sex trafficking and other violent actions (the producer filed to have his suit dismissed in August). That same month, Kanye West’s former assistant, Lauren Pisciotta, sued him for alleged sexual harassment (a legal representative for the rapper claimed the lawsuit was “blackmail and extortion”). And in July, Murder Inc. Records co-founder Irv Gotti was sued for alleged rape and abuse by a woman identified only as Jane Doe (he has denied any wrongdoing).

As history has shown, a culture of abuse has run rampant at the hands of powerful men in the music industry who refuse to take accountability for any of their alleged harm. Combs claimed in December that he “did not do any of the awful things being alleged” against him before brutal surveillance footage that surfaced in May clearly showed the music executive physically assaulting Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 (Ventura detailed the same encounter precisely in her lawsuit). He later released a video apology on Instagram (which has since been removed from his page), taking “full responsibility” for his actions in the footage but for nothing else he’s been accused of.

That could change once Combs’ yet-to-be-scheduled federal sex trafficking trial begins, as his mountain of allegations is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s publicly known. Federal prosecutors’ extensive evidence of Combs’ alleged criminal enterprise will likely expose more, especially since they claim the mogul’s unlawful behavior persisted just days before his arrest.

Nonetheless, Combs’ indictment, which also cites unnamed associates and employees, signals a watershed moment many didn’t anticipate would come so soon after Ventura’s lawsuit — remember, it took over a decade for charges to come down on Jeffrey Epstein for his crimes. With prosecutors adamant about trying Combs’ case in a court of law, the American justice system has taken the first significant step toward holding the industry executive liable for his improprieties.

Now the music industry has officially been put on notice.

The public takedown of Combs is a warning to any wealthy, high-powered folks in the music space who indulge in similar criminal acts and the fearful enablers who stand by silently, unmoved and unwilling to intervene in corruption that goes on far too long. The same goes for those, like Russell Simmons, who thought fleeing could erase the horrid accusations coming from survivors who bravely went on record about the pain endured in their workplace or inflicted by their powerful employers. Evading justice only prolongs the damage, as Combs may be figuring out. But the day of reckoning, for the music industry, at least, is here, and the reign of its abusers is coming to an end.

If we as a culture are to do right by any survivors who have spoken up, we cannot stop with Combs. It’ll take more action and more listening to prosecute unscrupulous men to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, the music industry stakeholders must commit to creating a safer environment by exiling those who continuously defame it with their deceit.

Only then can justice be served.

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