Sean “Diddy” Combs has reportedly been put on suicide watch at the detention center where he is awaiting trial, according to People. The embattled music mogul was arrested by federal agents at a Manhattan hotel on Monday after a grand jury indicted him on racketeering and sex-trafficking charges. Combs has pleaded not guilty and is currently being held without bail at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.
People’s sources note Combs’s mental state is unclear and that his supervision is likely a “preventative measure,” as he is said to be in “shock.” By the National Institute of Corrections’ definition, suicide watch is often employed as a “supervisory precaution taken for suicidal inmates that require frequent observation.”
According to the Daily Beast, MDC is plagued by violence and chronically understaffed. In their motion for bail, Combs’s attorneys specifically referenced the detention center, noting that “several courts in this district have recognized that the conditions at Metropolitan Detention Center are not fit for pre-trial detention.” His legal team claimed an inmate was murdered there earlier this summer, and that four inmates have died by suicide in the past three years.
The indictment comes in the wake of a wide range of sexual-violence allegations against Combs. Since last November, at least ten people — including his former girlfriend, the singer Cassie (legal name Cassandra Ventura) — have sued Combs, accusing him of physical abuse, sexual harassment, rape, nonconsensual pornography, and sex trafficking. Combs has denied all allegations against him. (Though in May, he apologized for his actions after CNN published graphic footage showing him physically assaulting Cassie.) Earlier this year, federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations — an agency that investigates sex-trafficking allegations, among other things — raided Combs’s Miami and Los Angeles homes.
The indictment alleges Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct.” Prosecutors also claim Combs forced his victims to engage in “Freak Offs,” which the indictment describes as “elaborate and produced sex performances” involving male sex workers. According to the indictment, federal agents seized “Freak Off supplies” in their raid of Combs’s homes, including drugs and “more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant.”
Combs’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, responded to the arrest in a statement to Vulture, calling the prosecution of his client “unjust” and saying they were disappointed with the Southern District’s decision to pursue the case. “He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal. To his credit, Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges,” Agnifilo said. “Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”
This post has been updated.