Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs loses $100m default judgment over sexual assault allegations

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.” Cardello-Smith said he told Combs, “Well, I disagree with how you get down,” and rejected the settlement offer.

Lenawee county circuit court judge Anna Marie Anzalone subsequently issued an order restraining Combs from selling off assets that could help him cover any damages possibly awarded to Cardello-Smith. Then, when Combs failed to appear at a virtual hearing in Cardello-Smith’s lawsuit on Monday, Anzalone awarded the plaintiff a default judgment of $100m, as the Metro Times first reported.

Plaintiffs receive default judgments in their favor when defendants fail to take action in response to cases brought against them.

Court records show that Cardello-Smith is incarcerated at the Earnest C Brooks correctional facility after multiple previous convictions of criminal sexual misconduct. The Metro Times reported that he taught himself criminal and civil law during his incarceration while also developing “a long history of challenging the judicial system” with lawsuits.

Combs is not the only prominent defendant named in one of those lawsuits. Another is the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Detroit, in a lawsuit alleging that two of the organization’s priests as well as one of its lay employees sexually abused Cardello-Smith between 1979 – when he was about seven years old – and 1993.

It was not immediately clear how easily Cardello-Smith may be able to collect his judgment against Combs, though the plaintiff told Metro Times he went “way back” with the defendant.

Source : The Guardian