Rapper and producer Sean Combs, better known as Diddy, was arrested Monday night in New York City after being indicted by a grand jury. The New York Times reported.
The exact nature of the charges has not been announced; the grand jury originally convened in July.
In a statement issued by Combs’ lawyers to the NYT, she “voluntarily moved to New York last week in anticipation of these charges.”
“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, a self-made entrepreneur, a loving family man, and a proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, loving his children, and working to better the Black community. He is a flawed man, but he is not a criminal,” the statement said.
Because the allegations have not been made public, it is unclear whether the new charges are related to a May report that federal investigators were preparing to charge him with crimes related to a federal grand jury investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.
Combs, whose Bad Boy Records was a major force in the rise and dominance of hip-hop, also faces other serious charges and allegations of sexual assault and other misconduct.
His longtime girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, known as Cassie, filed a federal lawsuit in November accusing him of physical and sexual assault. Combs denied it, but settled the suit out of court the next day. In May, hotel surveillance footage from 2016 was leaked showing Combs brutally assaulting Cassie.
A week after he settled that lawsuit, two other women sued him for assault and battery over incidents they say took place decades ago.
Combs resigned as president of his hip-hop and youth media company Revolt following Cassie’s lawsuit and sold most of his stake in the company weeks after the assault tapes surfaced. Three days later, Howard University revoked the honorary doctorate it had awarded him in 2014, citing the video.
