Sean Combs faces four new sex abuse lawsuits, filed in one day

Four new sex abuse lawsuits have been filed against Sean Combs, including one from a woman who says she was assaulted while a contestant on a VH1 reality show in which people vied to be hired as the hip-hop mogul’s personal assistant.

The new cases, which were filed Thursday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, join the dozens of lawsuits that have been filed against Combs since Casandra Ventura, his former girlfriend, made bombshell allegations against him in November 2023. Ventura’s suit was quickly settled, though at least 50 suits have followed hers with various accusations of sexual misconduct or violence. He has denied the allegations.

In September, Combs was also indicted on federal charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied those accusations and pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled to begin in May.

In one of the new suits, Kendra Haffoney says that she was raped by Combs around 2008, while she was a contestant on VH1’s “I Want to Work for Diddy,” which ran on the cable channel starting that year. On the show, various aspiring assistants tried to impress the demanding and mercurial Combs to earn a place as his right hand. Haffoney is credited with appearances on two episodes.

In her suit, she alleges that she was handed a spiked drink at an after-party in the SoHo area of Manhattan, where Combs and others were partying, and “many sexual situations” were underway, making her uncomfortable. She became delirious, the suit says, and Combs “guided her head down” to perform oral sex on him. She passed out and awoke later at the cast house, and “knew that she had been sexually assaulted, raped” by him, according to the court papers.

Another suit was filed by Justin Gooch, who said that in 1999, when he was 16, he met Combs at the Tunnel, then a popular dance club in Manhattan. The suit says that Combs gave him ecstasy and alcohol, and they then went to a bathroom, where Combs gave Gooch more drugs and “anally penetrated” him without his consent. According to the court papers, when he finished, Combs said to him, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Leslie Cockrell, the plaintiff in a third suit filed Thursday, says that in 1999, she went to a party in the Hamptons, where Combs gave her a drink, and she became lightheaded and nauseous.

The plaintiff in the fourth suit, Aristalia Benitez accuses Combs “and/or other unknown associates” of assaulting her at a party at a New York restaurant, where she says Combs gave her what he said was a nonalcoholic drink that she believes contained drugs that caused her to lose consciousness.

In a statement, attorneys for Combs denied the allegations in all four suits.

“This is yet another example of false claims being filed against Mr. Combs,” the statement said. “No matter how many lawsuits are filed it won’t change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor. We live in a world where anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason.”

The four suits all cited the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, a New York City law enacted in 2000. An amendment to that law in 2022 created a temporary window in which people who believe they were victims of sexual assault could bring civil suits even if the statute of limitations for the alleged incidents had expired. The window is set to close at the beginning of March.

Lawyers and advocates have debated the bounds of the city law, along with the question of whether it conflicts with state laws that set similar look-back windows for allegations of abuse of both children and adults.

Some judges have also drawn limits on the law. Last year, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of US District Court in Manhattan dismissed a case against Steven Tyler, lead singer of rock band Aerosmith, who had been accused of aggressively kissing and groping a woman in the 1970s, when she was 17. Part of Kaplan’s reasoning was that the city law was preempted by the state laws.

It also remains unclear whether accusations that predate the passage of the Gender-Motivated Violence law in 2000 can be brought under the recent window. Some judges have ruled in other cases that the law could not be applied retroactively. In three of the four suits filed against Combs on Thursday the accusations involve encounters said to have occurred before 2000.

On Thursday, Combs’ attorneys took aim at plaintiffs who have filed suits in the last hours of the window created by the city law.

“With the deadline for New York’s Gender-Motivated Violence Act expiring tomorrow,” Combs’ attorneys said, “it’s clear that opportunists are rushing to file last-minute, meritless claims. Mr. Combs remains confident he will prevail in court.”