A week after Sean “Diddy” Combs reached a settlement in the rape lawsuit brought by his ex-girlfriend, Cassie, the rapper faces new sexual-assault allegations from two additional women. Both have filed their own suits, one of which accuses Combs of violent attacks, and the other of creating and distributing “revenge porn.” In a statement, Combs called the contents of both complaints “fabricated,” framing them as “purely a money grab.” He further accused the women of taking advantage of the New York Adult Survivors Act, which ended last week.
Both lawsuits were filed in New York on Thanksgiving, the first on behalf of a woman identified as Jane Doe. She accused Combs and singer-songwriter Aaron Hall of raping her and her friend at Hall’s apartment in 1990 or 1991. According to NBC, after meeting Combs and Hall at an MCA Records event, the women returned to Hall’s apartment. There, the suit says, the woman was “offered more drinks and was coerced into having sex with Combs.” It goes on to allege that “after Combs finished doing his business, Jane Doe laid in bed, shocked and traumatized,” while Combs went on to assault her friend. When Jane Doe began to get dressed, Hall allegedly “barged into the room, pinned her down, and forced [her] to have sex with him,” the suit says. Jane Doe recalls running away from the apartment, but says Combs appeared at the home the women shared days later, looking for her friend because he was, allegedly, afraid she would tell the “girl he was with at the time.” There, he allegedly attacked Doe yet again, choking her until she passed out.
The second lawsuit filed on Thursday came from Joi Dickerson-Neal, who alleges that Diddy drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1991 when she was a student at Syracuse University. According to CNN, the suit says that while on a break from school, Dickerson-Neal “reluctantly” went on a dinner date with Combs, during which he “intentionally drugged” her. That left her in a physical state where she could not “independently stand or walk,” the complaint states, noting that during the meal, Dickerson-Neal left her drink unattended while she went to the bathroom. After dinner, she claims that Combs pressured her into taking a puff of a blunt. Though she says her “memory is incomplete” from that moment onward, she recalls Combs taking her “to a place he was staying to sexually assault her,” according to her filing. Because “she had been drugged,” it continues, “Plaintiff lacked the physical ability or mental capacity to fend Combs off.”
The suit goes on to accuse Combs of recording the sexual assault, something Dickerson-Neal says she learned of days later, when a friend — DeVanté Swing of the R&B group Jodeci — told her he had seen a video of the encounter. When she asked him how many other people had seen the tape, she recalls him responding: “Everyone.”
Though she did not report the alleged assault immediately after it happened, Dickerson-Neal says she did eventually file police reports at unspecified agencies in New York and New Jersey. She also claims she spoke with prosecutors, who told her the allegations would need to be corroborated. But, her suit contends, possible witnesses were “terrified that Combs would retaliate against them and that they would lose future business and music opportunities if they made a statement” supporting her.
In a Friday statement to NBC, Dickerson-Neal said Cassie’s suit inspired her to speak about her experience publicly, explaining: “For 32 years, the only people I have been able to confide in were my close friends and therapists. I’m feeling as if the darkness has been lifted and I can freely move forward in achieving my full potential.” Cassie — whose legal name is Casandra Ventura — accused Combs of rape, sex trafficking, and physical abuse in a lawsuit filed November 16. She alleged that while dating Combs, he would give her “copious amounts of drugs,” and would beat her “multiple times a year.” She also claimed that he would make her have sex with male sex workers while Combs masturbated and took photos and videos. Though Cassie’s suit was settled a day after it became public, it sparked conversations about past allegations of violence against Diddy.
In a statement to TMZ, a rep for Combs denied Dickerson-Neal’s accusations, saying, “Mr. Combs never assaulted her and she implicates companies that did not exist. This is purely a money grab and nothing more.” (According to NBC, at the time of the alleged assault, Combs worked for Uptown Records and had not yet formed his companies, which her suit names.)
The lawsuits are among a wave of others filed under the New York Adult Survivors Act of 2022. The legislation gave victims of sexual assault a one-year window to file charges for assaults whose statute of limitations expired. The lookback period ended on November 23, prompting a rush of last-minute filings. During the year that the law was in place, more than 2,500 suits were filed — many of them against high-profile men, including Bill Cosby, former president Donald Trump, and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. In the past week alone, suits have been filed against former governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Eric Adams, Jamie Foxx, and Axl Rose. All have denied the allegations against them, with a spokesperson for Combs telling E! that Dickerson-Neal and Jane Doe are taking advantage of the law: “The New York Legislature surely did not intend or expect the Adult Survivors Act to be exploited for improper purposes. The public should be skeptical and not rush to accept these unsubstantiated allegations.”
