Woman alleges Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs raped her on video in latest lawsuit
AP Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Another woman sued Sean “Diddy” Combs on Tuesday, alleging that the music mogul and his head of security raped her and recorded it on video at his New York recording studio in 2001.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in New York, the latest of several similar suits against Combs, comes a week after he was was arrested and a federal sex trafficking indictment against him was unsealed.
Thalia Graves alleges that when she was 25 and dating an executive who worked for Combs in the summer of 2001, Combs and Joseph Sherman lured her to a meeting at Bad Boy Recording Studios. She said they picked her up in an SUV and during the ride gave her a drink “likely laced with a drug.”
According to the lawsuit, Graves lost consciousness and awoke to find herself bound inside Combs’ office and lounge at the studio. The two men raped her, slapped her, slammed her head against a pool table and ignored her screams and cries for help, the lawsuit alleges.
At a news conference in Los Angeles with one of her attorneys, Gloria Allred, Graves said she has suffered from “flashbacks, nightmares and intrusive thoughts” in the years since.
“It has been hard for me to trust others to form healthy relationships or even feel safe in my own skin,” Graves said, crying as she read from a statement.
She said it is “a pain that reaches into your very core of who you are and leaves emotional scars that may never fully heal.”
Combs remains jailed without bail in New York on federal charges alleging that he ran a vast network that facilitated sexual crimes and committed shocking acts of violence, using blackmail and other tactics to protect Combs and those close to him.
He pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. His attorney said he is innocent and will fight to clear his name. His representatives did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the latest lawsuit. There was no immediate indication from the lawsuit or from Combs’ representatives whether Sherman had a separate attorney who could comment on the allegations.
The lawsuit was filed under the New York City Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act, and comes during a two-year window that suspends legal deadlines and allows sexual assault victims to sue over abuse that might otherwise be too old to pursue.
Allred declined to say whether her client had spoken to investigators in Combs’ criminal case. The indictment in that case mentions only allegations since 2008.
Graves’ lawsuit also alleges that late last year, after Combs’ former singing protege and girlfriend Cassie filed a lawsuit that began the surge of allegations against him, Graves learned through her former boyfriend that Combs had recorded her rape, shown it to others and sold it as pornography.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused, unless they come forward publicly as Graves and Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, have done.
Graves’ lawsuit says both Combs and Sherman contacted her multiple times in the years after the assault, threatening repercussions if she told anyone what had happened to her. She was in a divorce and custody fight at the time and feared losing her young son if she revealed anything, the suit says.
Graves said at the news conference that the guilt and shame attached “often made me feel worthless, isolated and sometimes responsible for what happened to me.”
The lawsuit seeks damages to be determined at trial and for all copies of the video to be accounted for and destroyed.
The lawsuit also names as defendants several companies owned by Combs, the three-time Grammy winner and founder of Bad Boy Records who was among the most influential hip-hop producers and executives of the past three decades.
