The hip-hop mogul failed to respond to lawsuit against him over alleged sexual assault in Detroit in 1997
A man who accused Sean “Diddy” Combs of sexually assaulting him has won a $100m judgment after the rapper, music producer and businessman failed to contest the allegations in a civil courthouse in Michigan.
Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, 51, secured the remarkably large judgment after filing a lawsuit that described how he encountered Combs while working in the restaurant and hospitality industry near Detroit.
According to the Detroit Metro Times, Cardello-Smith alleged that he was both drugged and sexually assaulted by Combs at a party in Detroit in 1997, just one claim amid a broader pattern of alleged sexual abuse and other misconduct by the three-time Grammy winner once also known as P Diddy, Puff Daddy and Love.
Cardello-Smith, who is incarcerated, eventually sued over the alleged attack and provided information showing Combs’s name in a prison visitation log. And at a preliminary 7 August court hearing conducted virtually, Cardello-Smith testified that Combs offered him $2.3m to drop his lawsuit, which would allow the music mogul to complete a property sale.
The plaintiff testified that Combs, 54, told him he would not acknowledge Cardello-Smith’s claims in court, saying: “You know how we get down.
