LOS ANGELES (AP) — Another woman filed a lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs on Tuesday, alleging that the music mogul and his security chief raped her at a New York recording studio in 2001 and recorded the incident on video.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York, is the latest of several similar lawsuits against Combs and was filed a week after his arrest and the unsealing of a federal sex trafficking indictment.
Talia Graves claims 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 says they picked her up in an SUV and gave her drinks “possibly laced with drugs” while in the car.
According to the lawsuit, Graves lost consciousness and woke up tied up in Combs' office/lounge at the studio, where the two men raped her, slapped her and slammed her head on a pool table, ignoring her screams and cries for help, the lawsuit alleges.
Graves, speaking at a news conference in Los Angeles with one of his lawyers, Gloria Allred, said he had been plagued by “flashbacks, nightmares and intrusive thoughts” for years since.
“It's been difficult for me to trust others and feel safe in myself in order to have healthy relationships,” Graves said, tearing up as she read the statement.
She said it was a “pain that reaches to the very core of who we are and leaves a wound that never fully heals.”
Combs remains held without bail in New York on federal charges that he ran a vast network that facilitated sex crimes and committed shocking acts of violence, using threats and other tactics to protect himself and those close to him.
He has pleaded not guilty to organized crime conspiracy and sex trafficking charges. His lawyers 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 hired another attorney who could comment on the allegations.
The lawsuit was filed under the New York City Sexual Assault Victims Protection Act, which suspends legal deadlines and allows victims of sexual assault to sue for abuse that is too old to normally sue, during a two-year grace period.
Allred declined to say whether his client had spoken to investigators in Combs' criminal case, which the indictment only mentions allegations from 2008 onwards.
Graves' lawsuit also alleges that after a lawsuit filed late last year by Combs' former singing protégé and girlfriend, Cathy, sparked a flurry of allegations against him, Graves learned through a former girlfriend that Combs had recorded her rape, shown it to others, and sold it as pornography.
The Associated Press typically does not publish the names of people who allege they were sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Graves and Kathy Ventura, whose real name is Cassandra Ventura, have done.
According to Graves' lawsuit, Combs and Sherman contacted her repeatedly in the years following the assault, threatening to retaliate if she told anyone about what happened to her. Graves was in the midst of a divorce and custody battle at the time and feared she would lose her young son if she revealed anything, the lawsuit states.
Graves said at the press conference that feelings of guilt and shame made him “feel worthless, isolated and at times responsible for what happened to me.”
The lawsuit seeks damages to be determined at court and for all copies of the video to be archived and destroyed.
The suit also names as defendants several companies owned by Combs, a three-time Grammy Award winner, founder of Bad Boy Records and one of the most influential hip-hop producers and executives of the past three decades.
