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Seven new sexual abuse lawsuits against Sean “Diddy” Combs were filed Monday (Oct. 14) in Manhattan federal court, the first in a wave of dozens of civil cases expected to be filed in the weeks ahead.
The cases — each filed by an anonymous Jane Doe or John Doe plaintiff — were all filed by Los Angeles attorney Andrew Van Arsdale and Texas attorney Tony Buzbee, who earlier this month said he is representing at least 120 such alleged victims.
“While his wealth has kept him above consequence for years, Combs now faces the awesome power of the American judicial system and ultimately a jury of his peers who will be asked to punish him for the deplorable conduct,” the lawyers wrote in matching language in each complaint.
Five of the cases on Monday were filed by men and two were filed by women. In one, a woman claims that Combs lured her into a bathroom at a 1995 promotional event for a Notorious B.I.G. music video, then violently raped her. “You better not tell anyone about this, or you will disappear,” he allegedly told her after the attack.
Another case was filed by a man who says he was sexually assaulted by Combs in 1998 when he was 16 years old and attending one of the rapper’s famed “white parties” in the Hamptons. The man claims that Combs forced him to remove his pants and demanded he allow him to “inspect” his genitals.
“Combs abruptly then let go of John Doe’s genitals and told him that his people would be in touch,” the lawyers write in that lawsuit. “Combs continued with his party as if nothing had happened, but for John Doe, everything had changed.”
Representatives for Combs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Combs, also known as Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, was once one of the most powerful men in the music industry. But last month, he was indicted by federal prosecutors over accusations of sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson and bribery. If convicted on all the charges, he potentially faces a sentence of life in prison.
In their indictment, prosecutors allege that Combs ran a sprawling criminal operation aimed at satisfying his need for “sexual gratification.” The charges detailed “freak offs” in which Combs and others would allegedly ply victims with drugs and then coerce them into having sex with male sex workers, as well as alleged acts of violence and intimidation to keep victims silent.
A trial is currently set for May 5.
In addition to the criminal cases, Combs has also faced a slew of civil lawsuits over the past year, including at least 12 filed prior to Monday’s new lawsuits.
Amid a federal lawsuit, a judge says Martin Shkreli must personally go to court and testify under oath about the extent to which he copied and shared Wu-Tang Clan’s rare album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
In a brief ruling Friday (Oct. 11), Judge Pamela K. Chen scheduled a hearing for next month to resolve the issue of what exactly Shkreli did with Once Upon, an ultra-rare Wu-Tang record that he once owned but was forced to forfeit to federal prosecutors after he was convicted of securities fraud.
The judge said the ruling was designed to “resolve the deficiencies” in Shkreli’s previous sworn statements about the fate of the album, in which the pharma exec said he wasn’t sure who might still have copies.
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“Defendant Shkreli will be called upon to testify under oath regarding the copying and distribution of the album’s tracks,” the judge wrote. “Both parties will be permitted to question defendant Shkreli on these issues.”
Wu-Tang’s fabled album was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. In addition to the bizarre trappings, Once Upon came with strict legal stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103.
In 2015, Shkreli — soon to become infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought Once Upon at auction for $2 million. But after he was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited it to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. PleasrDAO, a collective of early NFT collectors and digital artists, then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights for another $750,000.
Amid recent efforts to monetize Once Upon, Pleasr sued Shkreli in June after he made threats to release the album publicly and destroy the exclusivity that the company had purchased. The lawsuit accused him of both breaching the federal forfeiture order and violating federal trade secrets law, which protects valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.
In August, Judge Chen granted Pleasr a preliminary injunction requiring Shkreli to hand over any copies of Once Upon that were still in his possession. Shkreli’s attorneys had argued he had the right to create private copies when he owned the album and could retain them even after he forfeited the original copy, but the judge rejected that argument.
Last month, Shkreli told the judge he had “searched my devices, electronic accounts, and other personal effects” and handed over any copies he owned. He swore that he had done so “under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America.”
But he also said he didn’t know exactly who he had shared it with, and that some of them probably still have copies.
“Because I shared the musical work several times several years ago, I cannot recall each and every time that I have shared the musical work,” he told the judge. “It is possible, and indeed I find it highly likely, that one of the many people who viewed, heard, or otherwise accessed the musical work via my social media recorded the musical work and retains a copy of the same.”
Attorneys for Pleasr weren’t pleased. In a response filing days later, they told the judge that Shkreli’s disclosure “falls short” of the judge’s requirements and “raises doubts as to whether Defendant has, in fact, made a good faith effort to comply.”
On Friday, Judge Chen responded with her order requiring Shkreli to appear in court. His attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday (Oct. 14).
Ye (formerly Kanye West) is being sued by a former assistant who alleges the rapper drugged and sexually assaulted her during a studio session he co-hosted with Diddy.
Lauren Pisciotta, the ex-assistant who filed the new lawsuit, previously sued Ye in June, when she accused him of sexual harassment, breach of contract and wrongful termination; a legal rep for Ye denied the lawsuit’s allegations in June.
Amended court documents were filed in California on Oct. 8 and first obtained by TMZ, according to The Hollywood Reporter, who reached out to Ye’s rep for comment.
Pisciotta, who worked for Ye for a year, claims in the October filing that she and an unnamed artist management client were invited to one of Combs’ studio sessions.
She says “drinks were served to her and others in attendance, followed by an announcement that everybody had to drink, if they wanted to stay.”
“After a few small sips of the beverage, poured at the direction of Kanye West a.k.a. Ye by a studio assistant and then served to her by Kanye West, Plaintiff suddenly started to feel disoriented,” the suit alleges. Pisciotta claims she got roofied. Pisciotta says upon waking up she felt “immense shame and embarrassment” but could remember almost nothing about what happened.
She alleges Ye brought up that night to her years later, telling her they “did kind of hook up,” and that he provided details about what happened.
Pisciotta, an OnlyFans model, worked for Ye first as an executive assistant and later as chief of staff for his companies.
Sean “Diddy” Combs is named in the amended case filing as co-host of the studio event on the night of the alleged incident. However, Pisciotta has not made any accusations against him.
Diddy is currently being held in a Brooklyn jail, awaiting trial after his Sept. 16 arrest on sex trafficking and racketeering.
R. Kelly’s daughter Buku Abi is claiming in a new documentary that her father sexually abused her as a child.
Abi, whom Kelly shares with his ex-wife Andrea “Drea” Kelly, made the accusation in the two-part series R. Kelly‘s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey, which premiered through the TVEI Streaming Network on Friday (Oct. 11).
“He was my everything. For a long time, I didn’t even want to believe that it happened. I didn’t know that even if he was a bad person that he would do something to me,” Abi, whose legal name is Joann Kelly, says in the episode. “I was too scared to tell anybody. I was too scared to tell my mom.”
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In the second episode, Abi, now 26, claims the abuse happened when she was 8 or 9 years old. “I just remember waking up to him touching me,” she tearfully recalls. “And I didn’t know what to do, so I just kind of laid there, and I pretended to be asleep.” She added, “from that moment on, I was a different person.”
Abi says she initially reported the alleged abuse to her mother in 2009, and a complaint was filed under “Jane Doe,” but the statute of limitations had run out. “They couldn’t prosecute him because I waited too long. So at that point in my life, I felt like I said something for nothing,” she said.
Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean said in a statement to People that the imprisoned singer “vehemently denies these allegations. His ex-wife made the same allegation years ago, and it was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and was unfounded…. And the ‘filmmakers,’ whoever they are, did not reach out to Mr. Kelly or his team to even allow him to deny these hurtful claims.”
The disgraced R&B singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence after he was convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking charges in 2021. In 2022, Kelly was also convicted of six counts of child pornography and enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity.
The first two episodes of R. Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey are currently streaming through the TVEI Streaming Network.
A founding member of the experimental rock band Mr. Bungle was found guilty Friday (Oct. 11) of first-degree murder in the killing of his girlfriend after prosecutors in California found an audio file the victim recorded on her phone as she fought for her life.
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A jury in Santa Cruz deliberated for a day before finding Theobald “Theo” Lengyel guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of his girlfriend Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann on the night of Dec. 4, 2023, inside her Capitola home, KSBW-TV reported. Lengyel faces life in prison and is set to be sentenced in November.
Lengyel, 55, was arrested in January after investigators found Herrmann’s remains in a wooded area of Tilden Regional Park in Berkeley. Herrmann was reported missing the previous month after she didn’t show up to a family gathering in Hawaii.
On Oct. 1, prosecutors played an audio recorded on Herrmann’s phone begging for her life as her boyfriend strangled her to death, KRON-TV reported.
It is unclear if Herrmann, 61, intentionally recorded the audio or if the app inadvertently recorded it.
District Attorney’s Office Inspector Steven Ryan testified that investigators did not discover the chilling audio file until Sept. 22, 2024, a month after Lengyel’s murder trial began.
The recording starts with Lengyel playing piano before growing angry at Herrmann because she doesn’t want to go out to play pool. Herrmann repeatedly says she does not want to go because she has to work in Berkeley the next day.
A few minutes into their argument, Lengyel can be heard threatening his girlfriend stating, “I could mash your f(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)ing brain.”
According to prosecutors, the verbal argument escalated into a physical altercation. Herrmann could then be heard pleading for her life, gasping for air.
Lengyel left Mr. Bungle in 1996 after playing saxophone, clarinet and keyboards on several recordings, including the band’s self-titled 1991 debut album and Disco Volante in 1995. He did not participate in any of the band’s recent reunion tours, which began in 2020.
Mr. Bungle was formed in Northern California’s Humboldt County in 1985 by high school friends including guitarist Trey Spruance, bassist Trevor Dunn and vocalist Mike Patton, who went on to perform with Faith No More. Mr. Bungle experimented with funk, heavy metal, electronic, jazz and other musical styles, gaining popularity during the alternative rock boom of the 1990s.
In a 2005 Q&A, Dunn said Lengyel left the band on bad terms, SF Gate reported.
A federal appeals court judge has ruled to keep Sean “Diddy” Combs locked up while he makes a third bid for bail in his sex trafficking case, which is slated to go to trial in May.
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In a decision filed Friday (Oct. 11), Circuit Judge William J. Nardini denied the hip-hop mogul’s immediate release from jail while a three-judge panel weighs his bail request.
Combs’ lawyers appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 30 after two judges rejected his release.
Combs, 54, has been held at a federal jail in Brooklyn since his Sept. 16 arrest on charges that he used his “power and prestige” as a music star to induce female victims into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances with male sex workers in events dubbed “Freak Offs.”
Combs has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges alleging he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
At a bail hearing three weeks ago, a judge rejected the defense’s $50 million bail proposal that would’ve allowed the “I’ll Be Missing You” singer to be placed under house arrest at his Florida mansion with GPS monitoring and strict limits on visitors.
Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr., who has since recused himself from the case, said that prosecutors had presented “clear and convincing evidence” that Combs is a danger to the community. He said “no condition or set of conditions” could guard against the risk of Combs obstructing the investigation or threatening or harming witnesses.
In their appeal, Combs’ lawyers argued that the judge had “endorsed the government’s exaggerated rhetoric” and ordered Combs detained for “purely speculative reasons.”
“Indeed, hardly a risk of flight, he is a 54-year-old father of seven, a U.S. citizen, an extraordinarily successful artist, businessman, and philanthropist, and one of the most recognizable people on earth,” the lawyers wrote.
Combs’ lawyers have not asked the new trial judge, Arun Subramanian, to consider releasing him on bail. At a hearing Thursday, as Combs sat alongside his lawyers in a beige jail jumpsuit, Subramanian suggested he would at least be open to taking up the issue.
After setting a May 5 trial date, Subramanian briefly questioned Combs’ lawyers about his treatment at the Metropolitan Detention Center, which has been plagued by violence and dysfunction for years.
Combs lawyer Mark Agnifilo, who had previously sought to have him moved to a jail in New Jersey, told the judge: “We’re making a go of the MDC. The MDC has been very responsive for us.”
Another Combs lawyer, Anthony Ricco, told reporters outside the courthouse afterward: “He’s doing fine. It’s a difficult circumstance. He’s making the best of the situation.”
But, Ricco said: “Nobody’s OK with staying in jail for now.”
A British YouTuber and rapper known as Yung Filly has been charged with raping and choking a woman in a hotel room following an Australian music performance.
The 29-year-old, whose real name is Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos, was freed on bail when he appeared Thursday (Oct. 10) on several charges in a court in Perth, the west coast city where police allege his crimes were allegedly committed on Sept. 28.
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His bail conditions include that he remain in Western Australia state, doesn’t contact his alleged victim and doesn’t post about the case on social media.
He was ordered to surrender his passport and to report to police daily. His surety was set at 100,000 Australian dollars ($67,400).
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Prosecutors had opposed bail because of a risk that he would flee the state.
His lawyer, Seamus Rafferty, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Barrientos is currently touring Australia and was arrested in the east coast city of Brisbane on Tuesday, a police statement said. The Colombia-born entertainer, who has 1.8 million followers on YouTube, was extradited back to Perth on Wednesday.
His Australian tour began in Perth and traveled to Melbourne and Sydney before it was scheduled to end in Brisbane.
Police allege he assaulted a woman aged in her 20s in a hotel room after he had performed in a Perth nightclub.
His show at Bar1 Nightclub was promoted by ticket-selling platform MoshTix as a “seamless blend of spontaneity, humor and music that’ll have you talking for weeks!”
He is charged with four counts of rape, three counts of assault causing bodily harm and one count of impeding the woman’s normal breathing or circulation by applying pressure to her neck, police said.
Barrientos started his YouTube career in 2013 and music career in 2017. He has also hosted or appeared in several television programs.
He won a MOBO Award, an annual British music award presentation honoring achievements in “music of Black origin,” in the Best Media Personality category in 2021.
Sean “Diddy” Combs will stand trial on May 5 in his racketeering and sex trafficking case, a federal judge ruled at a court hearing on Thursday (Oct. 10).
The order from Judge Arun Subramanian — who replaced Judge Andrew L. Carter as the presiding judge last week and will handle the eventual trial — was issued from the bench and reported by the Associated Press and other outlets.
The trial date is in line with what the rapper’s legal team wanted. In court documents Wednesday (Oct. 9), they said they were continuing to assert his constitutional right to a speedy trial and would be seeking to get the case before a jury in April or May.
Though a trial date is now set, the schedule could still be pushed back, particularly if prosecutors file new charges or add defendants to the case. It could also be delayed if Combs eventually waives his speedy trial right to give his team more time to prepare — a decision that might hinge on whether he’s granted bail in a pending appeal.
When he does stand trial, Combs will face charges of racketeering and sex trafficking over what prosecutors say was a sprawling criminal operation aimed at satisfying his need for “sexual gratification.” The decades-long scheme allegedly involved not only elaborate sexual parties called “freak offs” and other sex abuse, but also forced labor, kidnapping, arson and bribery.
“For decades, Sean Combs … abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct,” prosecutors wrote in their indictment last month. “To do so, Combs relied on the employees, resources and the influence of his multi-faceted business empire that he led and controlled.”
Thursday’s hearing came less than 24 hours after Combs’ lawyers accused the government of leaking evidence to the media, including the infamous surveillance video of Combs assaulting then-girlfriend Cassie in 2016.
At Thursday’s hearing, according to AP, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson pushed back on those “baseless” claims, saying it was simply an effort by Combs’ lawyers to prevent jurors from seeing the “damning” Cassie video: “Not a single one of those alleged leaks are from members of the prosecution team,” Johnson said.
The next court date for Combs’ case is currently set for December.
Universal Music Group (UMG) has filed a lawsuit claiming Chili’s used more than 60 copyrighted songs from Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and others on social media without permission, just months after the Beastie Boys accused the restaurant chain of the same thing.
In a complaint filed Tuesday (Oct. 10) in Manhattan federal court, the music giant accused Chili’s owner Brinker International Inc. of willfully using unlicensed music in dozens of promotional videos across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
“In order to draw the attention of consumers in the fast-moving world of social media, defendants chose to rely on the use of popular music as an integral part of their Chili’s messaging,” UMG’s lawyers write. “But despite this success, defendants have failed to pay plaintiffs for the music that serves as the soundtrack for Chili’s social media ads.”
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In addition to Grande and Bieber, UMG says the videos featured music from dozens of other stars, including Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga, Snoop Dogg, Lana Del Rey, ABBA, Luke Bryan, Travis Scott, Bruno Mars, Lil Nas X, Earth Wind & Fire, The Weeknd and more.
The new case comes less than three months after Chili’s was accused of largely the same thing by the Beastie Boys. In that case, which remains pending, the iconic rap trio accuses the restaurant of using their 1994 smash “Sabotage” online, including in a video that mimicked the song’s 1970s-themed music video.
Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok provide huge libraries of licensed music for users to add to their videos. But there’s a key exception: The songs can’t be used for commercial or promotional videos posted by brands. That kind of content requires a separate “synch” license, just like any conventional advertisement on television.
That crucial distinction has led to numerous lawsuits in recent years.
Beginning in 2021, all three major labels sued drink maker Bang Energy for using hundreds of copyrighted songs in promotional TikTok videos, with Universal and Sony eventually winning large judgments. In May, Sony filed a case against Marriott over accusations that the hotel chain had used nearly 1,000 of its songs in social media posts. And in July, Kobalt and other publishers sued more than a dozen NBA teams over the same thing.
In Tuesday’s case against Chili’s, UMG argued that a sophisticated company with more than 1,600 restaurant locations would have known that it needed sync licenses to use well-known music in ads — or at least that it should have known.
“Defendants include successful companies promoting multiple restaurant franchises with their own legal departments and protecting their own intellectual property interests,” UMG’s lawyers write. “Despite defendants’ prior history of licensing music from plaintiffs for use in commercials, defendants did not seek to determine which of the videos at issue in this complaint used plaintiffs’ musical works.”
Brinker did not immediately return a request for comment.
A California appeals court has sided with The Offspring in a long-running court case filed by former drummer Ron Welty, rejecting his claims that he was owed millions more from the punk band’s $35 million catalog sale.
Welty’s lawsuit alleged that lead singer Bryan “Dexter” Holland had tried to “erase” his contributions to the Offspring, including by shorting him on the proceeds of the band’s 2015 catalog sale to Round Hill Music. But a Los Angeles judge rejected those accusations last year.
In a ruling Wednesday, California’s Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, saying there had been “no reversible error” in the lower judge’s decision. Welty raised numerous challenges to how the lower judge had handled the case, but the appeals court was not convinced by any of them: “The judgment and order are affirmed.
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Welty joined The Offspring in 1987 and served as the band’s drummer during its heyday, including on its 1998 album Americana that reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200, before leaving the band in 2003 on undisclosed terms.
In his sweeping 2020 lawsuit, Welty accused Holland and the other members of numerous forms of wrongdoing: “This lawsuit seeks, among other things, redress for The Offspring’s failure to pay Mr. Welty his rightful share of the band’s proceeds and a prohibition against their ongoing efforts to harm Mr. Welty, his legacy with the band, and his ongoing career.”
Among other allegations, Welty claimed he had been entitled to a bigger cut of the Round Hill deal, in which the company paid $20 million for the rights to the band’s recorded masters — split among the band’s key performers — and another $15 million for the publishing rights, paid directly to Holland.
Welty claimed he deserved some of that publishing money, and argued in his lawsuit that he was owed at least $2.8 million more from the Round Hill transaction. But at a bench trial in 2022, Judge William F. Fahey largely rejected those accusations, calling some them “completely illogical.” During the proceedings, other members of The Offspring had testified that the structure of the deal was fair since Holland had written all of the band’s music.
In a written decision last year, Fahey ruled that the deal had been “structured in accordance with industry standards” and that Welty had failed to prove that he was entitled to a cut of Holland’s $15 million: “It is hard even to envision a reason why these two other band members would agree to such a structure unless they believed that Holland was the creator and owner of the music compositions.”
In March, the judge issued a final judgment in favor of the band, finalizing the earlier rulings and rejecting the rest of Welty’s claims. It was that ruling that was affirmed by Wednesday’s decision at the appeals court.
Following the ruling, Welty’s attorney, Jordanna G. Thigpen, said her client had “great respect” for the appellate court but was “contemplating the next step of appellate review.” Howard King, an attorney for The Offspring, declined to comment.
