P. Diddy’s Lawsuits Name 8 Celebrities, What About Them?

It's a shocking fall from grace. In less than a year, P. Diddy went from beloved music icon to disgraced sexual predator, at least according to the charges from the feds.

Right now, he's behind bars in New York, the same place where just last year he was given a key to the city. It was a disturbing set of allegations that led to Diddy's arrest in the way of multiple civil suits brought by accusers, and in some of those suits, codefendants are listed, while in others, celebrities are involved. Could it be a time of reckoning for them too?

We're taking a deep dive into all the celebrities listed in Diddy's civil lawsuits and whether they too could face federal charges. I'm Sierra Gillespie, and this is Law & Crime News. A groundbreaking case was brought forth just this week when 54-year-old Sha Diddy Colmes was arrested on September 15th.

He now faces some pretty serious federal charges: racketeering, conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Diddy was indicted by a federal grand jury and is now being held in Brooklyn at the Metropolitan Detention Center after he was twice denied bail. Diddy's attorneys say he was in New York for about a week before the arrest, anticipating the federal indictment, but he wasn't the only one who kind of saw this coming.

After federal investigators raided two of Diddy's homes back in March, we kind of had an idea something was on the way. Just this week, we learned some of the items that investigators collected during those raids of Diddy's homes in both Miami and Los Angeles. According to the indictment against Diddy, investigators seized more than a thousand bottles of baby oil and lubricants from his homes.

The court documents state that these items were used in something referred to as "freak offs," which were elaborate and produced sex performances that Colmes arranged, directed, and sometimes electronically recorded. According to prosecutors, Diddy and his associates transported commercial sex workers over state lines and even internationally. Diddy then allegedly gave these sex workers and victims controlled substances at times unannounced to the victims.

Prosecutors say Diddy did this to keep the victims obedient and compliant. He then took videos of victims having sex with these sex workers, sometimes without their consent. After all this, both Diddy and the victims would receive IV fluids to recover from the physical exertion and drug use.

Federal investigators say that during the raids of Diddy's homes, they collected some of these recordings, showing the disturbing details of these freak offs. The feds had a heads-up about these recordings thanks to some of the civil lawsuits filed against Diddy, namely the one brought by Rodney Jones, also known as the producer Lil' Rod. Lil' Rod worked with Diddy on his Love album starting in 2022 and says he experienced months of abuse, all at the hands of Diddy.

In his lengthy civil suit, Lil' Rod refers to these recordings, saying, "Mr Colmes required Mr Jones," that’s Lil' Rod, "to record him constantly. Mr Jones has secured hundreds of hours of footage and audio recordings of Mr Colmes, his staff, and his guests engaging in some serious illegal activity. " Lil' Rod's lawsuit also lays out some other pretty disturbing claims, like that Diddy sexually assaulted him and forced Lil' Rod to have sex with a prostitute.

But Lil' Rod's lawsuit came out swinging in more ways than one. Not only did it shed light on the dark allegations against Diddy, but it dropped some high-profile celebrity names too. First, there's Academy Award-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr.

Lil' Rod alleges Diddy was "grooming" him to pass him off to his friends. This fear became reality when Mr Colmes introduced Mr Jones to Cuba Gooding Jr. while they were on Mr Colmes' yacht.

The lawsuit includes pictures of this too, showing both Diddy with Cuba and then Cuba with his arms around Lil' Rod. Court documents go on to say, "Cuba Gooding Jr. began touching, groping, and fondling Mr Jones's legs, his upper inner thighs near his groin, and the small of his back near his buttocks and his shoulders.

" He rejected his advances, and Mr Gooding Jr. did not stop until Mr Jones forcibly pushed him away. Here's former prosecutor Melba Pearson: "In the last couple of years, there were allegations against him for sexual assault.

So now we had those prior allegations, and now we see him tied to this case as allegedly trying to assault Lil' Rod and others. " Back in 2019, Cuba was booked on misdemeanor charges of forcible touching and sexual abuse after allegedly groping a woman in Times Square. By the next year, three women had come forward accusing him of non-consensual sexual touching.

He eventually reached a plea deal with prosecutors that required six months of counseling but no jail time. Just this summer, he appeared on Dan Abrams Live, where he discussed those charges: "When you pleaded guilty to a forcible touching misdemeanor in 2022, it eventually led to a guilty plea of a lesser charge. A year later, you settled a federal civil lawsuit.

Two more civil misconduct lawsuits. Can you understand why some would say, 'Don't want to cast this guy'? Sure, but I can also understand some people who come up to me in the street all the time and yell, 'Show me the money!

' and say, 'Hang in there,' and I see what you're going through. You know, you make movies for an audience of people, right? So right now, I'm making a movie for faith-based people who are excited to know our hope in humanity, especially the times we're in dealing with politics and the world issues that are going on.

So that's where I am now. And have you expressed regret, sorrow, or apologies for what happened previously? Everything that happens in my life is for.

. . " A reason I believe that, and if I continue to walk on my path, whatever that is, I know at the end result it'll be to make me stronger, to be a better person, to be a better father, you know.

And right now, that's the moment I'm in. Back to Melba, she says it's possible that charges could be brought against the actor. I am getting the feeling where there's smoke, there's fire, right?

Because now we have two different instances where you're accused of the same type of behavior, you know, years apart. I think there's something there, and I don't know that Cooper Gning Jr. is going to escape from that one because he already saw definitely people moving away from him within Hollywood circles and other circles once those first sexual assault allegations came out.

So at this point, I don't think he's going to get away with it a second time. Is it possible that he could face charges based on these allegations that were brought forward by Lil Rod? It is possible as well.

Again, we've got the statute of limitations issue to deal with, so depending on the timeframe of when this happened. . .

you know, again, the Adult Survivors Act, which was the vehicle where many of these lawsuits came out—when these civil lawsuits, excuse me, came out—there was a finite amount of time for those suits to be filed. The timeframe is going to be very, very important. What witnesses come forward, because again, you know, this may not be a situation where DNA may be at play; this may be more a situation of "Hey, yes, I was there, and I recall, you know, Kubba Gning Jr.

, you know, putting his hands on Lil Rod," or "I recall certain aspects. " So it's going to be a very witness-intensive type of case, and the question is: Will the witnesses be willing to come forward? Another high-profile name listed in Lil Rod's lawsuit is Jennifer Lopez.

From the standpoint of the names of the celebrities that were tied to this, the fact that Jennifer Lopez was tied to this back when she was involved in or party to a shooting at a nightclub when she was dating Diddy and is now alleged to have brought the gun with her to the scene and gave it to Diddy, and that's how the shooting occurred. Lil Rod's team brings up JLo when establishing Diddy's history, writing his quote: "Rico Enterprise has existed for at least 20 years, dating back to the 1999 nightclub shooting in NYC, when Mr Combs required his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez to transport his illegal firearm into the NYC nightclub. " The court also alleged Diddy forced his then-artist Shine to assume responsibility for the shooting of several individuals.

The shooting happened on December 27th, 1999, at about 2:55 a. m. A fight broke out at a nightclub in New York City between Diddy, Jamal Barrow, who’s known as the rapper Shine, and Matthew Allen, who went by the nickname Scar.

Guns were drawn, and three people were shot; no one suffered any life-threatening injuries, and the victims were not involved in the fight. JLo and Diddy fled from the scene in a car but were later arrested and charged. JLo's charges were dropped, but the others stuck.

Diddy was acquitted, but Shine was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released in 2009 and deported back to his home country of Belize. Lil Rod alleges it was Diddy who pulled the trigger, and Shine just took the fall for him.

Because of this allegation, experts like former FBI agent Bobby Chone say investigators could take a second look at the shooting if there's a civil lawsuit that lays out this major allegation. What would it take to reopen an investigation into something that happened 25 years ago? Well, it would take a different look at it.

In other words, he was acquitted on the state murder charges. Now, federal charges can be different; you can have RICO; you can have a continuing criminal enterprise. The underlying acts, the predicate acts, if we used to call them when we worked RICO cases, a RICO predicate act could be something like that 1999 case, and you can use it as a predicate act.

You can bring it up. When I worked cold cases of this type, sometimes with the passage of time, people aren't as intimidated, and they're not as threatened, and they get away from the person who was the threat, and they feel more forthcoming to testify or to give statements in lieu of testimony. But certainly, I think that case is going to be part of it.

You know, in the aftermath of that, they have witnesses that say he bragged about intimidating witnesses, paying off jurors. Certain. .

. certain. .

. when you have that kind of stuff, if you go back and you find that juror that was paid off or jurors, multiple that may have been paid off, certainly that gives you the impetus to kind of come forward and refresh those charges on a federal case. So the federal cases will be a little different; the charges are a little different, so it's not double jeopardy.

I think that the case that you mentioned, that you cite, I think is certainly one of the ones they're looking to build into a much bigger— to me, maybe a RICO-type case. We also know that federal investigators have spoken to other plaintiffs in civil cases. against Diddy to learn more about his personality and what he's like in relationships.

That means JLo is someone the feds will want to talk to if they haven't already. It also means she could be called to testify against him; it's possible. It's absolutely possible.

Um, if I was the prosecutor handling that case, I absolutely would list her, right? Um, but of course, we need to know whether or not she'd be cooperative. That, of course, changes the strategy when it comes to trial.

So you may list someone as a potential witness; that does not mean you're necessarily going to call them. The question is whether or not they're going to—if their testimony is really going to help you. Um, but there is a universe where she could testify against him in terms of, you know, violence; in terms of his interactions with other artists, especially the folks that have been coming forward alleging that he has harmed them in some way or engaged in, you know, human trafficking and sex trafficking.

So was she aware of any of that going on? Did she see him with underage girls? Or was she present for when some of those videos were taken?

That little Rod included screenshots of those videos in his pleadings. So how much of that did she know? When did she know it?

And what actions did she take at the time? Is that part of the reason why they broke up? We don't know.

So all of this will be seen. Obviously, the prosecution and law enforcement need to speak with her, get a statement from her to understand what she knows or what she could be able to testify to, and then make appropriate decisions from there. But it's not just artists that Lil Rod named either.

He specifically mentioned Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex. In his filing, it reads in part, "Mr Colmes was known for throwing the best parties. His affiliation with and sponsorship of Mr Colmes's sex trafficking parties garnered legitimacy and access to celebrities such as famous athletes, political figures, artists, musicians, and international dignitaries like British royal Prince Harry.

" Why even name Prince Harry? There's no allegations against him or anything, but why bring him up? I think it may have been a move to bring more credibility to the filing and say that, you know, basically he (being Diddy) was using his fame, fortune, and influence to insulate himself.

So he was able to legitimize some of the activities he was doing by having these lavish parties, bringing all these A-list celebrities. But somewhere in a back room or somewhere in another wing, you know, horrible things were happening. So the fact that Prince Harry was there does not necessarily mean he was participating in what was happening.

And just because you were at a party doesn't mean you know what's happening in every inch of the house. I mean, if you think about it, if the party is being thrown in a mansion, there are various floors and wings. So it is completely possible that he was there and did not participate.

Now, you had said Prince Andrew—especially as a result of the allegations that came out in connection with the Epstein case—that they were close and that they traveled together. And you know, there was a person that alleged that he had sexually assaulted her while she was underage. That would be a different story.

But Prince Harry, and the way that it was mentioned, seemed to be very, again, just sort of trying to bring legitimacy and talk about these were the people that Diddy surrounded himself with to protect himself. Prince Harry has no criminal charges or even any accusations of illegal activity, but he could still see the inside of a courtroom in a defamation case. It's possible that Prince Harry may be able to preserve his reputation, and since it was such a minuscule mention in the greater context of this filing, he may be okay.

Another celebrity mentioned in Lil Rod's lawsuit is Young Miami, who dated Diddy from 2021 to 2023. According to the lawsuit, Young Miami's cousin assaulted Lil Rod during the Thanksgiving holiday in 2022. It reads, "Young Miami's cousin burst into the bathroom and began groping Mr Jones.

She started undressing and attempted to straddle him and have sex with him in the presence of Mr Colmes and his staff. " Similar to Prince Harry, there are no allegations against Young Miami herself, so there's probably no worry of charges being filed against her. But there could be charges against some of the other people listed in Lil Rod's lawsuit.

That's people like Diddy's Chief of Staff, Christina Corum, who Lil Rod compares to Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime companion of Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 when he faced numerous charges of sexual assault over the course of multiple years. Maxwell was charged and found guilty of sex trafficking in relation to her time with Epstein, and she is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence.

Lil Rod says Christina Corum ordered sex workers and prostitutes for Mr Colmes and ordered and distributed ecstasy, cocaine, GHB, ketamine, marijuana, and mushrooms to Mr Colmes and his celebrity guests who were present on his rented yacht and at his homes in L. A. , NYC, and Miami.

This is referenced in Diddy's indictment too, saying members and associates of the Colmes Enterprise, including high-ranking supervisors, security staff, household staff, personal assistants, and other Colmes business employees, facilitated the "freak offs" by, among other things, booking hotel rooms for the "freak offs," stocking the hotel rooms in advance with the required "freak off" supplies, including controlled substances, baby oil, lubricant, extra linens, and lighting. Federal prosecutors also alleged these associates arranged travel for victims and commercial sex workers, delivering large sums. Of cash to Diddy to pay these sex workers and even scheduled the delivery of IV fluid.

So, according to Melba, it's possible some of these associates are charged too. None of these cases, when you have these high-profile people that have been using people over years, happen without a handler. R.

Kelly had a handler; you know, uh, Epstein had a handler; Weinstein had a handler. Everybody has, in those scenarios of those powerful people, powerful men that are abusing other people, someone that does their dirty work, and it's usually not only just one person, it's several people who may have different duties. So again, you know, seeing this woman being his handler, being the person to get him drugs, being the person to, uh, procure sex workers for him, being the person to basically be on cleanup duty in case of, you know, covering up or silencing people that might want to come forward— that’s not unusual.

And she is also going to bear the brunt of criminal liability just like Ghislaine Maxwell did and basically had to take the entire brunt of the criminal justice system alone because of the fact that, you know, um, Epstein committed suicide and was not able to be held accountable. And we can't talk about Diddy without mentioning Cassie, the one whose lawsuit blew the lid off Diddy's alleged scheme. She filed a civil suit against Diddy last November under the New York Survivor Act, meaning any sexual assault survivor could file suit against their accused predator and the statute of limitations didn't matter.

Cassie's lawsuit was settled just one day after it was filed, but it was still made public, dropping a laundry list of bombshells about Diddy that the public hadn't previously heard. Cassie's lawsuit outlined years of abuse by Diddy, starting when she was just 19 years old and at the time he was 37. According to her suit, Diddy was prone to uncontrollable rage and frequently beat Cassie savagely.

Cassie alleged Diddy forced her to use drugs and would physically beat her or force her to have sex with prostitutes. Then there's the gun allegation that on at least two occasions Diddy demanded Cassie hold his gun in her purse. The lawsuit goes on to state, "There was no clear reason why Mr Combs required her to hold his guns except to reinforce to his young girlfriend that he was violent, powerful, and dangerous.

" This echoes a similar allegation made by Lil' Rod about Jennifer Lopez's part in the 1999 New York nightclub shooting. Not only did Jennifer Lopez allegedly bring the gun to the club, but now we’re also looking at years later, Cassie coming forward and saying that Diddy forced her to carry a gun with her when they went out to different events. So again, I think that this is more along the lines of when you look at this from a domestic violence lens, from the standpoint of the abuser being very controlling and demanding certain activities to prove loyalty to, uh, you know, basically put yourself in a bad situation where only he can be the one to save you.

Seeing the parallels between J. Lo's experience and Cassie's experience, number one, it brings more credibility to what Cassie said in her pleadings, but also again, it causes us to look at Jennifer Lopez and be like, some of the comments she made about the end of her relationship to Diddy in terms of, well, you know, there was infidelity, and you know, she kind of skirted the issue a bit. But when you start to look back at her comments, you start to think, oh, were you in a domestic violence relationship with Diddy, much like how Cassie ended up in a domestic violence relationship with him?

Cassie kind of broke the floodgates, so to speak, when she made her civil suit back in November. These crazy allegations we’d never heard anything like it before, and then all of a sudden we have several more people coming forward, and then more once it turns to 2024. So we have multiple plaintiffs who are coming forward alleging very similar things.

I'm wondering, without these civil suits, would we even be here right now? Would Diddy even have been arrested and indicted? I really don’t think so; I really don’t think so because Cassie's lawsuit opened the floodgates, and I think it empowered other survivors to come forward and tell their stories.

And then when Lil' Rod came forward, I think that was just another huge moment in this case because now you have male victims coming forward, and we know statistically male victims of sexual assault generally don’t report for a number of reasons, but they many times view it as an attack on their masculinity, and they're very concerned about how they would be viewed publicly. And Lil' Rod was brave, which I really commend his bravery in standing up and saying, "Listen, this is what happened to me," and that empowered more and more folks to come forward, including most recently Danity Kane, you know, one of the members of Danity Kane stating that he had abused her and she had witnessed the abuse he had levied on others. So I think that all of these voices coming forward and saying, "Listen, there’s something here," the FEDS took notice.

And even though they may not have been public about it at first, we knew obviously when they searched the houses, we knew that this was getting very serious. But they were monitoring this the minute that Cassie filed her lawsuit, and when they read those allegations, I can assure you that investigation started immediately. And then as more and more survivors came forward again, the FEDS would be going and interviewing each.

. . Of those people seeing what evidence they have, so for instance, do they have, uh, maybe some cell phone footage, or can they substantiate what occurred to them in other ways?

Maybe follow-up text messages, emails—all of these things are aspects that they are able to use to now bring in their case in chief against Diddy. Months ago, we reported that Cassie was working with federal investigators in the case against Diddy. We can't know for sure whether she testified in the grand jury hearing that would ultimately indict Diddy, but it's likely at least some of his accusers did.

I do believe that a number of the survivors would have testified. I don't think that they would have brought all of them because, number one, testifying is traumatizing, especially when you're talking about the most awful day, likely of your life, and some very degrading things that happened to you. You have to tell that to a bunch of people you don't know, so you have to be very cautious in when and how you bring your victims and your survivors to testify.

Think about that in terms of your strategy because, again, you may want to save some of the survivors for the actual trial if this does go to trial and maybe just pick one or two that make the point, right? Then you can fill it in with more evidence as the trial proceeds. But you don't necessarily have to show all of your evidence to the grand jury; you just pick the strongest pieces of evidence so that, again, you're not burning your survivors out before they get to the point of trial unnecessarily.

Obviously, they do have to testify and, you know, tell their story so that the jury has something to deliberate on. But at the same token, you don't want to push them too much because, again, that trauma is very real, and even if they are getting assistance through counseling or something along those lines, it's still a lot to have to talk about it, especially in such a huge media frenzy around it, with so many people weighing in—whether it be social media or other celebrities or things like that. So those are some of the things that the assistant U.

S. attorney would have been considering when deciding who should be brought in front of the grand jury to testify. When it comes time for trial, we could expect to hear from Cassie or other accusers in federal court.

You're bringing up a really good point, because as you said, this is probably one of the darkest times of these survivors' lives, and they have to come forward with these serious allegations and relive the trauma that I’m sure they’ve been working to overcome. It's really tough, but we're assuming that a lot of them are going to testify at the trial, whenever that may be, and there are several accusers that have to go through and do all of that. What would it look like at the trial then?

At the trial, now the key is that the U. S. attorney's office has to make sure that they're not going too far afield with bad character evidence.

We saw how that kind of backfired in the Harvey Weinstein case as well as the Bill Cosby case, where other instances were brought in that were maybe not as close in time or, more so, not really enlightening the jury about what happened in the charges that were in the indictment, but more so, "he's just a really bad, horrible, predatory person. " That may be the truth; however, when it comes to proving the charges at hand, you have to be very focused on making sure the jury understands what happened during the time frames that are specified in the indictment. So, if some of these other survivors—let's say something happened ten years ago—that might be too far in time for them to be able to testify.

But if we're talking about an instance of something that happened last year, for instance, that might be closer in time to allow them to be able to testify. Again, if they have specific knowledge about certain aspects of the indictment, of course, they'll be brought to testify. But again, you have to be very cautious, because you want to be able to preserve—if you're able to get a conviction—you want to be able to preserve it on appeal by not making these types of errors.

After his indictment this week, Diddy pleaded not guilty to all charges and was denied bond twice. A statement from his legal team reads, "Sha Diddy comes as a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community. He is an imperfect person but is not criminal.

To his credit, Mr Colmes has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation, and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.

" More updates are sure to come in the case of United States versus Sha Diddy, so make sure to subscribe to our YouTube page so you don't miss a thing. Reporting for Law & Crime, I'm Sierra Gillespie.