Embattled rapper and hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested at a New York City hotel Monday night amid a federal sex-trafficking investigation, officials said.
The fallen star, 54, voluntarily traveled to the Big Apple in anticipation of his arrest on federal charges stemming from a grand jury indictment, according to prosecutors and sources.
Combs, who was photographed walking through Manhattan with his son Christian “King” Combs earlier in the night, was taken into custody at the Park Hyatt New York by Homeland Security Investigations, which typically handles sex-trafficking probes, the sources said.
It was not immediately clear Monday what charges Combs is facing. He is expected to be arraigned at Manhattan federal court Tuesday morning — at which point the indictment with the charges against him will be unsealed.
“Earlier this evening, federal agents arrested Sean Combs, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY,” Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. “We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.”
Combs has recently been accused of repeated instances of sexual and physical abuse during the height of his fame as a producer to huge names in hip-hop, like Mary K. Blige, Usher, Lil Kim and the late Biggie Smalls, in the 1990s and 2000s.
He was first accused of a years-long pattern of domestic and sexual violence — and even trafficking — against his former girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie Ventura, in a lawsuit she filed against him last November.
