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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs expected in court after being charged in New York
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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs expected in court after being charged in New York

NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs was scheduled to appear before a federal judge in New York on Tuesday after being arraigned on unspecified criminal charges.

The music mogul was arrested in Manhattan on Monday night, about six months after federal authorities raided his lavish homes in Los Angeles and Miami as they conducted a sex trafficking investigation.

According to US Attorney Damian Williams, the charges are expected to be made public on Tuesday morning.

Over the past year, Combs has been sued by people who claim he physically or sexually abused them. He has denied many of the allegations, and his attorney, Marc Agnifilo, called the new charges an “unjust prosecution.”

“He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal,” Agnifilo said in a statement Monday night.

Combs, 58, was considered one of the most influential figures in hip-hop until a flurry of allegations over the past year made him a pariah in the hip-hop industry.

In November his ex-girlfriend, the R&B-list singer Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit alleging that he beat and raped her for years. She accused Combs of forcing her and others into unwanted sex in drug-fueled settings.

The lawsuit was settled in a day, but months later CNN aired footage from hotel security showing Combs punching, kicking and throwing Cassie to the ground. After the video aired, Combs apologized, saying, “I was disgusted when I did it.”

However, Combs and his attorneys denied similar allegations made by others in a series of lawsuits.

Douglas Wigdor, an attorney for Cassie, said in a statement Tuesday that “neither Ms. Ventura nor I have any comment.”

“We appreciate your understanding and if that changes, we will certainly let you know,” he added.

One woman said Combs raped her two decades ago when she was 17. A music producer filed a lawsuit, saying Combs forced him to have sex with prostitutes. Another woman, April Lampros, said Combs subjected her to “terrifying sexual encounters” beginning when she was a college student in 1994.

Normally, the AP does not name people who say they were sexually abused unless they report it publicly, as Cassie and Lampros did.

Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Records, has gotten out of legal trouble before.

In 2001, he was acquitted of charges related to a shooting at a Manhattan nightclub two years earlier, in which three people were injured. His then-protégé, Shyne, was convicted of assault and other charges and served about eight years in prison.

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Andrew Dalton, an Associated Press editor in Los Angeles, contributed to this report.