New lawsuit accuses Sean Combs of rape after he recorded an assault and later distributed it as porn

Another woman has accused Sean “Diddy” Combs of sexual abuse. Thalia Graves claims that Combs and his bodyguard Joseph Sherman tied her up and brutally raped her in a Bad Boys recording studio in the summer of 2001, recorded the assault without her knowledge and later distributed the video as pornography.

In both her 26-page civil complaint and a televised press conference given by her attorney, Gloria Allred, Graves says she was 25 at the time of the assault and met the owner of Bad Boy while dating a record producer who worked for the label. Graves claims Combs invited her to a Manhattan recording studio, where he offered her a drink she believed was laced with drugs; shortly after she drank it, she passed out. When she awoke, Graves claims, she was naked and her hands were “bound and tied” with what she believes was a plastic bag.

Graves says Combs came into the room naked and he and Sherman, aka Big Joe, then took turns raping her vaginally and anally. When she tried to escape him, Combs slammed her head into a pool table, knocking her unconscious again. When she awoke, Graves claims, Sherman slapped her and forced her to perform oral sex until she was unconscious a third time. The civil suit states that “both men were undeterred by the plaintiff's cries for help throughout the attack.”

When she regained consciousness, she claims she was alone in the studio and ran out as fast as she could. The lawsuit alleges she was “afraid of what Combs would do to her and her family if she reported him” and did not get a rape kit. When she confided in her then-boyfriend, he discouraged her from revealing the assault, Graves says, fearing it would negatively impact his own career.

Graves says she has never recovered physically or emotionally from the 2001 assault and suffers from severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts. She claims both Combs and Sherman have contacted her regularly over the years and “warned her to keep quiet.”

Graves is now the 11th plaintiff to file a civil lawsuit against the hip-hop personality since last fall. In November 2023, singer Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura, an ex-girlfriend of Combs, detailed a decade of alleged abuse, coercion and sex trafficking at his hands. Ventura's high-profile lawsuit was settled out of court within 24 hours of the news breaking, but her allegations inspired many others to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct and violence against Combs. Other plaintiffs who have made accusations against him include singer Dawn Richard, choreographer LaurieAnn Gibson and producer Rodney Jones, as well as young women dating back to the early 1990s.

Combs has repeatedly maintained his innocence over the past year despite a series of statements from his lawyers, but when a 2016 video surfaced of the disgraced tycoon attacking Ventura in a hotel hallway, he posted a public apology to her on his Instagram account.

In November 2023, around the same time Ventura began the landmark trial, Graves learned for the first time that the mogul had filmed himself and Sherman being raped and had shown the video to several men to humiliate her and her then-boyfriend. At the time of the attack, Sherman was the founder of Rhymes N Dimes Magazine, Inc., and Graves believes the recording of her attack was also distributed as pornography through the bodyguard's media network. When Graves learned this, she relived the attack and fell into suicidal thoughts again.

Although Graves is now one of many civil lawsuits, her allegations are the first since Combs was arrested in New York last week on sex trafficking and organized crime charges. The federal indictment, which alleges Combs used his record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, to run a sex trafficking ring for his own gratification, mirrors portrayals in many civil lawsuits.

Combs pleaded not guilty to all counts in the indictment and is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn awaiting trial.

Copyright: NPR