Prosecutors Claim Texts Show Diddy's Pattern of Sex Abuse: 'I'm Not a Rag Doll. I’m Someone’s Child'

Federal prosecutors used Sean “Diddy” Combs’s own words – and the words of the women they say the rapper sexually abused – against him in federal court this week to help ensure he remains behind bars until his trial on charges of racketeering and sex crimes.

“I’m not a rag doll. I’m someone’s child,” Assistant United States Attorney Emily A. Johnson said, quoting an unnamed woman’s message from a lectern in Manhattan’s federal court Wednesday, Sept. 18.

Combs – who pleaded not guilty to the three-count indictment at his arraignment Tuesday – sat silently between his defense lawyers dressed in a black long-sleeve shirt and striped gray sweatpants during Wednesday’s detention hearing in which he was denied bail for the second time.

“There is a longstanding pattern of abuse here,” Johnson told the judge Wednesday. 

Johnson read from messages in which a woman claimed to be “heavily drugged” during a sexual encounter with the singer. Prosecutors alleged in an indictment that multiple women said Combs had used recordings of those encounters as blackmail. 

In a message Johnson attributed to Combs, he allegedly directed an associate to “make sure” a woman’s rent was “paid on time” in what Johnson alleged was a pay-off.      

Much of the rapper’s federal case centers on singer Cassie Ventura, who dated Combs for a decade. 

Although Ventura has not been named in court documents, the widely-circulated surveillance video depicting Combs – dressed in socks with a towel wrapped around his waist – kicking, stomping and dragging her by the arm through the hallway of the now-shuttered InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016, has been attached as an exhibit in federal court filings and referenced frequently in early court proceedings. 

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Shortly after that attack – which Combs apologized for after the released video went viral, calling his behavior “inexcusable” in an Instagram video in May that has since been deleted – Ventura allegedly messaged the rapper, detailing her injuries. 

“I have a black eye and a fat lip,” Johnson read from Ventura’s message. “You are sick to think it’s okay what you’ve done.” 

Johnson also read into the record a message allegedly written by Combs immediately following the hotel violence, telling a close associate: “Call me. The cops are here. I’ve got six kids. Yo, please call. I’m surrounded. You gonna abandon me all alone?” 

Johnson clarified for the court that Combs’ reference to a police response was not necessarily accurate but, she said, illustrated his fear that he would be held criminally responsible for his actions. (No charges were filed against the singer in 2016.)

On November 16, 2023 Ventura filed a civil lawsuit against Combs in Manhattan’s U.S. District Court in which she alleged years of sexual abuse. 

Three days later, Johnson told the court, another woman texted the rapper about the suit, telling him: “I feel like I’m reading my own sexual trauma. It makes me sick,” and adding that she saw mirrored Ventura’s alleged experience: “my anguish.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.