By MICHAEL SLOVANOS
SEAN “Diddy” Combs is probably a name that doesn’t mean much or anything to many Australians, but in the world of music and Hollywood and American political influence he is a big and dirty player who is accused of running an Epstein-style blackmail and extortion operation.
Combs was arrested by Homeland Security agents and is being held in custody. Other raids on associated properties were run by the FBI. Numerous lawsuits including one from his long-time singer partner Cassie, also accuse him of sexual assault, engaging in sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping and decades of physical abuse against women, among other allegations.
Significantly, Rodney Jones, a former associate of Combs, has filed a lawsuit alleging RICO (racketeer influenced and corrupt organisation) crimes against a list of people including Combs and Lucian Charles Grainge, the CEO of the Universal Music Group, the biggest music company in the world. The company is listed separately as a defendant.
And then there’s Kevin Liles, CEO of 300 Music Group, former executive vice president for Warner Music Group, who was not charged but who announced his resignation the day after Combs was indicted by prosecutors for orchestrating “a criminal enterprise” through his business.
According to one of Diddy’s former bodyguards, Combs is a complete narcissist who “could not stand not being somewhere and not being seen”. So we get the picture of a not-so-smart hustling bad boy who went way off the track into a dark criminal lifestyle glossed over by the glitzy public persona of the rap music mogul.
Combs is essentially accused doing what Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were doing – running a sex and blackmail operation in order to gain influence and control over influential people. But with Epstein supposedly dead and Maxwell silenced in jail on lesser charges, their high-level political circle of influence and co-offenders remain at large, basically untouched.
In a revealing Newsmax interview, Jaco Booyens, an anti-human trafficking campaigner, said the legal definition of sex trafficking with “forced fraud coercion” did not appear in the indictments against Epstein or Maxwell, but they did with Combs, supposedly to prevent any corrupt District Attorney pleading this down to a misdemeanour rape, drug or kidnapping charge. “Maxwell wasn’t tried in a sex trafficking case. This is very, very different.”
Booyens also predicted Combs would talk. “I believe this canary bird is going to sing,” he said. The charges are mounting up and he was facing 30 to 60 years. “They’re going to throw the book at this guy I believe, to make him a deal. And I believe the deal … is ‘now you’re going to spill the beans’ and if you talk we’ll give you 15 (years) with probation or whatever with some sort of condition.
“Sean will talk, that’s why JayZ in running, that’s why JayZ is nervous, (singer) Jaguar is talking about it – so many other artists at the moment. The industry is squirming because they know Sean is loose-lipped. He will talk.”
Booyens went on to tell how an executive from Combs’ organisation ended up in his office unannounced, asking for help, saying he was not part of the criminal operation, just running the brands. Booyens told the executive they would be coming after him regardless, given his 17 years in the organisation.
Booyens said Hollywood, Wall Street and professional sports and politicians were all implicated in this case. He also noted that minors allegedly attended Combs’ notorious days-long parties where women were videoed having sex with male prostitutes. Child trafficking had not yet appeared in charges, but if it did, then life imprisonment was certain.
Booyens said Combs coerced women into various sexual acts with the offer of record deals and stardom. “He is toast, he is fried, because it’s actually a sex trafficking case.” He said Combs paid off his $18 million home mortgage the week before turning himself in, thinking he would be free on bail with an ankle bracelet, but now his only prospect was a deal.
The question now is, as noted by Alex Jones, will the deep state elements within Homeland Security, who are accused of being complicit in the assassination attempts against Donald Trump, now use Diddy’s squealing to exercise their own leverage and control over those he names.
“What you’re going to find here, it’s the Epstein circle, it’s the (Harvey) Weinstein circle,” said Booyens. Remember they run in packs. Football players hang with football players, baseball players with baseball players – the industry run in packs.”
He said Diddy’s notorious so-called freak out parties had been running 15 years. “Who do you think went through there? Everybody. They went through there. Now does that mean they’re all complicit in trafficking? No. But they saw stuff and they talked about it and they know what happens at midnight … certain things happen. Girls get naked, all of a sudden everybody’s naked. All of a sudden they find out have I been kissing on a man or a trannie?”
“All being recorded,” interviewer David J. Harris Jnr interjects. Booyens said one thing that could not be skimmed over was that Combs was led into the industry by a particular record label executive, who he would not name at this stage but who was “the biggest of the biggest – the godfather of American music who funded the freak-off parties as a mechanism to gather talent and bring them in”.
Booyens explained how he had a personal stake in the entire business – his sister was trafficked by a record label executive, prompting him to take up his role as an anti-trafficking campaigner. “This is where this started with my family. We know this inside-out.”
Asked by Harris how he saw the case being handled, Booyens said Damian Williams the prosecuting attorney was “cut from different cloth” and “not a typical New Yorker” who was “playing a different kind of a ball here” who would have to subpoena the FBI who raided the houses involved and he hoped they would play ball.
Combs, who was arrested at a hotel in New York City, has been charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. At a hearing last week in Manhattan, he pleaded not guilty but was denied bail and will remain in custody.
The charges are tied to “freak offs,” coerced sex acts that Combs allegedly orchestrated and recorded, according to a federal indictment from a Grand Jury.
It alleges Combs aka “Puff Daddy” “P. Diddy,” “Diddy,” “PD,” “Love,” operated his business, headquartered at various times in Manhattan and Los Angeles, under a variety of US-based corporate entities, including Bad Boy Entertainment, Combs Enterprises, and Combs Global. Corporate entities included record labels, a recording studio, an apparel line, an alcoholic spirits business, a marketing agency, and a television network and media company.
