Sean Combs, the music mogul whose career has been derailed by sexual assault charges and a federal investigation, was arrested in Manhattan Monday night after a grand jury indicted him, according to a person familiar with the indictment who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The charges in the indictment were not immediately clear.
Mr. Combs’ legal team said in a statement that it was disappointed with the decision to prosecute him and noted that he had cooperated with the investigation and had “voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges.”
“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man and accomplished philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, loving his children and working to improve the Black community,” the statement said. “He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal.”
Mr. Combs, 54, also known as Diddy and Puff Daddy, played a key role in hip-hop’s global rise as a commercial force in the 1990s and 2000s, helping to make stars of rappers and R&B singers like Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige. But he has been in the spotlight since a former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit last November accusing him of years of sexual and physical abuse.
Mr. Combs settled the lawsuit with Ms. Ventura, an R&B singer known as Cassie who had signed to Mr. Combs’s record label, within a day and denied any wrongdoing. But the legal pressure intensified over the next nine months, with five complaints filed by women alleging sexual assault and three other complaints of sexual misconduct, all brought in court by Mr. Combs’s lawyers.
In March, federal agents raided Mr. Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach, Fla., arrested him at a Miami-area airport and confiscated his electronic devices. Authorities made no statement at the time, but a federal official said the investigation was at least partly a human-trafficking probe. Federal prosecutors in New York had interviewed a number of witnesses about the allegations of sexual misconduct against Mr. Combs at the time, according to a person familiar with the interviews.
Mr. Combs has vigorously denied the accusations in the civil lawsuits, calling them “sickening allegations” from people looking for a “quick paycheck.” His lawyers have sharply criticized the way the raids — which involved gun-toting Homeland Security Investigations agents — were carried out, calling them “a gross military-level overuse of force.”
That defiant tone changed after CNN released hotel surveillance footage in May showing Mr. Combs physically assaulting and kicking Ms. Ventura in 2016. Mr. Combs posted an apology video on social media in which he called his behavior “inexcusable” and said he had sought professional help.
A prolific producer and talented impresario, Mr. Combs helped bring hip-hop to the mainstream through his record label, Bad Boy Entertainment. He also created a flamboyant, larger-than-life media persona, throwing celebrity-filled parties and hosting a popular MTV reality show, “Making the Band,” in the mid-2000s. He also built a lucrative brand portfolio that included fashion, alcohol and a cable television channel, Revolt.
Mr. Combs has been pursued for violence for decades, though this is the first time he has faced such a thorough investigation into his conduct over such a long period. In 2001, he was the subject of a high-profile trial for a nightclub shooting, in which he was acquitted of gun and bribery charges.
In recent years, he has adopted a new persona, asking people to call him Love, naming his new daughter Love and titling his first solo studio album in 17 years “The Love Album: Off the Grid,” which he released independently under a new label, Love Records.
Last year, Mr. Combs was coming off a wave of positive publicity related to that album and his long career in music when Ms. Ventura filed a lawsuit with detailed and disturbing allegations spanning more than a decade. Her complaint included accusations of sex trafficking and alleged that Mr. Combs had forced Ms. Ventura to have sex with male prostitutes in front of him, and had asked her to use websites and escort services to find prostitutes to participate in drug-fueled encounters that he called “freak offs.”
Mr. Combs decided to settle only Ms. Ventura’s lawsuit; his legal team fought the rest in court, describing the allegations as false stories invented to secure settlements.
In court filings, his lawyers said a lawsuit accusing him of participating in a 2003 gang rape had “single-handedly irreparably damaged” Mr. Combs’ reputation based on “gross and uncorroborated allegations.” And after a music producer accused Mr. Combs in a lawsuit of having unwanted sexual contact with him, a lawyer for Mr. Combs called the plaintiff a “liar” whose accusations were “pure fiction” intended to grab headlines.
Since those lawsuits were filed, much of Mr. Combs’ trademark portfolio has collapsed.
He sold his stake in Revolt and his share in DeLeón tequila, a partnership with spirits conglomerate Diageo. A New York private school network ended its partnership with him.
This month, Mr. Combs’s home in the affluent Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, where federal agents raided in March, went on the real estate market for $61.5 million.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, prosecutors have increasingly turned to sex trafficking laws to try sexual assault charges in federal court. R&B singer R. Kelly’s first conviction was on racketeering charges and violations of an anti-sex trafficking law known as the Mann Act.
The Department of Homeland Security, which often investigates sex trafficking cases, led the investigation into Mr. Combs. The March raids were announced to the world in televised footage showing agents converging on Mr. Combs’s sprawling Los Angeles home and taking away electronics; the mother of one of his sons later shared footage of agents pointing guns at Justin and Christian Combs as they were detained in their father’s home.
Since then, federal prosecutors have remained silent, quietly issuing subpoenas to potential witnesses as they build their case against Mr. Combs.
