Sean Combs ‘Physically Abused,’ ‘Threatened to Kill’ His Staff, Prosecutors Claim
Sean Combs’ physical violence was allegedly directed at both his romantic partners and personal employees, with the music mogul accused of once attempting to beat down a woman’s door with a hammer.
Prosecutors for the Southern District of New York leveled the new accusations against Combs on Monday as they argued against his release from jail. The 55-year-old Combs has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn without bail since his arrest on sex trafficking and racketeering charges on Sept. 16. (Combs pleaded not guilty to the three charges. If convicted, he stands to serve 15 years to life in prison.)
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U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian is expected to make a decision this week on whether Combs will be released. Combs’ attorneys have proposed a sizable $50 million bail package, in which Combs would be monitored 24/7 by a private security firm from a three-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side. His trial is currently set for May 2025.
However, prosecutors vehemently oppose Combs’ release, claiming that he has been continually tampering with witnesses and alleged victims — even from the MDC, using other inmates’ phone numbers and unauthorized methods of communication to contact third parties. (Combs’ team has denied any obstruction allegations against their client.)
Prosecutors also claim that Combs presents a danger to the community, alleging that he has an extensive history of physical violence toward romantic partners, including once attempting to beat down a woman’s door with a hammer.
“Often behind closed doors, the defendant engaged in acts of violence against women, including throwing them to the ground, dragging them by their hair, kicking, shoving, punching, and slapping them,” prosecutors allege in court documents. “He manipulated, coerced, and extorted women, including by plying them with drugs, threatening to withhold financial support, and threatening to disseminate sex tapes that the defendant had made of their sexual encounters. He [intimidated] women, including by displaying firearms, threatening them, showing up at their homes unannounced, and attempting to beat down the door — on one occasion with a hammer.”
Prosecutors widened the scope of Combs’ alleged abuse to his employees, who “have described the defendant threatening to kill them, throwing objects at them, and being struck, punched, and shoved by the defendant, and seeing him do the same to others,” according to court documents.
Throughout the 13-page letter, prosecutors argue that there are no measures that would satisfy conditions of Combs’ release. Combs has suggested that he could be monitored around the clock by a private security team. His attorney, Marc Agnifilo, had previously floated to the court hiring the company Sage Intelligence Group for the job. That company’s director is Herman Weisberg, a well-known private detective who has worked on several high-profile cases, including for Harvey Weinstein’s defense lawyers. The issue, prosecutors point out, is that Weisberg is “already working as a private investigator” for Combs and was “contacting witnesses — a fact that was not disclosed by the defense to the Court or to the Government prior to or at the hearing.”
And in a minor point to the government’s opposition to bail, they accuse Combs of breaking a gag order that his team insisted on by orchestrating a social media campaign for his birthday on Nov. 5. Prosecutors claim that Combs had his children post a video of themselves celebrating his birthday with the intention of influencing a future jury pool. Combs told one of his children that he wants to “reach for this jury. I just need one,” prosecutors claim, quoting from his alleged conversations from jail.
Referencing a gag order in President-elect Donald Trump’s federal election interference case, Combs’ team argues that a “heightened standard” should be similarly considered. Like Trump, they argue, Combs has “a greater constitutional claim than other trial participants … to criticize and speak out against the prosecution and the criminal trial process that seek to take away his liberty.”
“Mr. Combs is not required to sit idly by and acquiesce to all of this,” his defense attorney Alexandra Shapiro wrote in the defense’s letter to the court. “He has a right to a fair trial and a constitutional right to speak out on his own behalf.”
But prosecutors claim that unlike Trump, Combs is not running for president. They add that his “comments go well beyond attempts to claim that he is innocent of the charges against him and make clear that he intends to use the press to deliberately manipulate ‘outside influences to be biased in his favor.'”
This is Combs’ third attempt at release after having been denied by two previous judges. He currently has an appeal pending in the Second Circuit, which will likely move forward if Subramanian denies his request.
Prosecutors have voiced concerns that if released, Combs could potentially speak with witnesses and alleged victims. In the lead-up to his arrest, Combs was accused of speaking with a male escort who testified in the grand jury and later deleting those messages.
He is also accused of trying to feed a “false narrative” to a woman the government identified as Victim-2 after the woman said reading Casandra “Cassie” Ventura’s lawsuit was like reading her own “sexual trauma.” (Combs’ team denied this woman is a victim.)
In mid-September, SDNY unveiled its 14-page indictment against Combs. The case is largely built around the experiences of Combs’ ex-partner Ventura. The R&B singer sued Combs for sex trafficking and sexual abuse in November 2023, claiming that throughout their decade-long relationship, Combs forced her to engage in sexual acts with male sex workers. Ventura alleges that she was threatened with physical violence, professional retribution, potential leaks of the footage, and was kept compliant through excessive drug use.
The embattled music executive is also facing a growing pile of civil lawsuits. More than 30 men and women have sued Combs in New York and California, claiming they were assaulted by Combs from the 1990s and as recently as 2022. The claims come from former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard, producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, working models, aspiring artists, businessmen, security guards, and people who say they were teens at the time of their alleged encounters.
Combs has denied all claims of sex abuse through his reps. “As his legal team has said before, Mr. Combs has full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process,” his media team previously said in a statement to Rolling Stone.
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