American Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, currently in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, has been placed on suicide watch.
The move comes as Combs awaits trial on serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering.
The Los Angeles Times emphasize that the suicide watch is a standard procedure for high-profile cases, intended to protect the defendant.
Combs’ legal team continues to fight for his release. Their recent attempt to secure a $50-million bond and house arrest arrangement was rejected by U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter.
The judge stated on Wednesday that “a bail package that would have kept the hip-hop mogul under house arrest in his Star Island mansion in Miami — with security and no access to cellphones, internet or women apart from his family — was insufficient to release him pending trial.”
The Metropolitan Detention Center, where Combs is being held, has a troubled history. The facility, which has housed other high-profile inmates such as R. Kelly and Ghislaine Maxwell, is known for “violence and squalid conditions.”
Prosecutors unsealed their indictment against Combs on Tuesday, revealing shocking allegations. The charges include “sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution.” Combs has pleaded not guilty.
The indictment alleges that Combs and his associates “lured female victims, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship.” It further claims that Combs “allegedly used force, threats of force, coercion and controlled substances to get them to engage in sex acts with male prostitutes in what Combs referred to as ‘freak offs’.”
Prosecutors allege that Combs gave women “ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to ‘keep them obedient and compliant’ during the performances.” These encounters, which allegedly “sometimes lasted for days,” were described as “elaborate productions that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often recorded.”
The detention memo filed in court claims that these sex performances “occurred regularly from at least 2009 through this year” and that the hotel rooms where they took place “often sustained significant damage.”
