Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ Lawyer Calls Feds’ Raid On His Mansions ‘A Witch Hunt’ Amid Sex Trafficking Probe

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security raided the Holmby Hills, California, and Miami mansions of producer Sean “Diddy” Combs as part of a federal inquiry into sex trafficking accusations surrounding him.

According to law enforcement officials, the 17,000-square-foot mansion in Holmby Hills was raided by Homeland Security investigations agents on March 25.

The officials said that the agents had served a search warrant and gathered evidence on behalf of an investigation being run by the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

“Earlier today, Homeland Security Investigations New York executed law enforcement actions as part of an ongoing investigation, with assistance from HSI Los Angeles, HSI Miami, and our local law enforcement partners,” an HSI spokesman said in a statement. “We will provide further information as it becomes available.”

It was evening in Miami when federal agents entered the rapper’s mansion on Star Island — a man-made island in the Biscayne Bay where many millionaires reside.

The local NBC channel reported that agents were walking out of this home holding bankers’ boxes and laptops. The phones were seized as well.

Combs’ Los Angeles home was raided simultaneously in the afternoon on the West Coast.

Two of the rapper’s sons had been shortly detained at the Holmby Hills property as agents searched the mansion in footage captured by local TV.

“Yesterday, there was a gross overuse of military-level force as search warrants were executed at Mr. Combs’ residences,” Combs’ lawyer, David Dyer, said in a statement. “This unprecedented ambush — paired with an advanced, coordinated media presence — leads to a premature rush to judgment of Mr. Combs and is nothing more than a witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits. There has been no finding of criminal or civil liability with any of these allegations.”

Combs’ private plane traveled from California to Antigua during the raids, according to flight trackers.

On Sunday evening, around 5:30 p.m. local time, the rapper’s private plane had been tracked departing the Sacramento Executive Airport and then landed at Palm Springs International Airport nearly an hour later.

An hour after that, his plane took off from Palm Springs and landed at the Van Nuys Airport. The plane landed at around 8:00 p.m. local time.

The plane departed the California airport and landed in Antigua on Monday morning at around 9:00 a.m.

Combs had been confirmed not to be on the flight to Antigua after he was seen walking around the Miami Opa-Locka Airport on Monday afternoon.

On November 16, 2023, R&B singer Cassie, the longtime romantic partner of Combs whose real name is Cassandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit against her ex-partner in Manhattan’s Federal District Court.

She claimed that in 2018, she tried ending their relationship and leaving Combs when he raped her in her own home.

Ventura claimed that he frequently abused her, coerced her into sexual acts with male sex workers and exerted control over her personal life, with threats to hurt her professional career if she did not obey him.

One day after this lawsuit was filed, Combs and Ventura declared that they reached an agreement to settle the suit but neither party had revealed specific details of the settlement.

After three more women made allegations of sexual assault against him, Combs publicly replied to them in a statement that was typed in all caps and posted as an image on social media.

One victim asserted that she was assaulted and drugged by Combs while she attended Syracuse University in 1991. Another victim claimed that he and R&B singer Aaron Hall had taken advantage of her at the latter’s apartment. The third victim, anonymously known as Jane Doe, accused the rapper, Harve Pierre, the then-president of Bad Boy Entertainment and an unnamed man of gang-raping her back in 2003.

In late February, music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones Jr. also filed a lawsuit against Combs in U.S. federal court for the southern district of New York. He claimed that the rap mogul “forcibly touched and attempted and/or threatened to touch [Jones’] intimate areas and/or touched [Jones] with his own intimate body parts” while they were working on The Love Album: Off the Grid. Jones wants $30 million in compensation and a jury trial.

He also accused Combs and his son, Justin Combs, his chief of staff at Combs Global Enterprises, of participating in “a sex-trafficking venture.” The rapper, Justin Combs, Universal Music Group, Motown Records and Love Records are some of the defendants who are listed in this lawsuit.

Jones stated that he and Combs worked together from September 2022 and November 2023, a partnership which had resulted in nine songs on The Love Album: Off the Grid, for which the former was credited as a producer. He also asserted that he had not been paid for “13 months [and] thousands of hours of work.”

A representative for Combs said that Jones’ sexual assault accusations were “lies.”