Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Model Accuses Diddy of Drugging and Sexual Assault in New Lawsuit

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Starting point is 00:01:30 We have five disturbing details from the new lawsuit. Thanks for joining me for Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Yet another woman has filed a lawsuit against Sean Combs claiming that he sexually assaulted her, this one back in 2003. Her name is Crystal McKinney. She was a model in the late 90s and early aughts. She appeared on some MTV shows, including Total Request Live. McKinney's suit says in 2003, a designer invited her to meet Combs during Men's Fashion Week. The suit says the designer began to direct plaintiff's appearance as he sought to ensure that Combs found her attractive. For instance, the designer instructed plaintiff to go to Elizabeth Arden to get a root touch-up to ensure it was platinum blonde. The suit says that the designer even had a stylist

Starting point is 00:02:16 put hair extensions in McKinney's hair and then hand-picked her clothes, a black leather coat with a fur hood, a translucent chiffon beige V-cut shirt, and jeans encrusted with jewels. The suit says at a dinner that Combs told McKinney she was gorgeous and that she would make it big one day. She claims he made promises that he would help her advance her career. The suit says that Combs even gave McKinney his phone number as a show of good faith. She claims he was flirty and almost leering at her. Then later that night, she went to his recording studio, and that's where she said the assault took place. The suit says McKinney found Combs and several other men seated together, and they were drinking Hennessy and passing around joints.

Starting point is 00:02:59 One of Combs' associates asked her, quote, do you smoke weed? And she said yes. McKinney said that Combs told her you've never had weed like this before and passed the joint to her. The suit says that McKinney took a hit off the joint and it felt powerful, like she was floating. She says she later found out it had been laced with a narcotic and then Combs pressured her to drink more alcohol and smoke more of the joint, with Combs telling her she was being too uptight. Then the suit says that Combs led McKinney into the bathroom where he forced her to perform oral sex on him, pushing her head into his crotch and telling her, quote, suck it. The suit says that McKinney lost

Starting point is 00:03:37 consciousness and came to in a taxi cab. The suit goes on to claim that Combs had her blackballed in the industry and that she went into a deep depression, even trying to take her own life the following year in 2004. Robin Nunn is a litigator, and she's been combing through this lawsuit, as have I. Robin, Crystal McKinney lays out some serious allegations, and they're kind of similar to some allegations that other women have made. She was a model back in 2003. It sounds like she had some success. And she's claiming she met Sean Combs one night, and then things went downhill

Starting point is 00:04:12 from there after she claimed she was sexually assaulted. Yeah, reading her complaint was very sobering. It's a very sad story. She seems to be someone who was an up-and-coming model at one point, a winner of MTV's model mission, just really kind of breaking into her career and having a lot of success. And unfortunately, in the early parts of that career, she seems to have been introduced to Sean Combs and had a very sort of debilitating experience and evening with him and, you know, wasn't really able to ever recover. And her career in life, you know, sort of suffered is a part of her, is the allegation in her complaint. She's filed this complaint in federal court. She lives in Georgia. She's from Georgia.

Starting point is 00:05:03 So she was in New York, traveled to New York for this men's fashion week back in 2003 when she claims the sexual assault happened. What I find interesting about this is the fact that she's represented by the same attorneys who represent Joy Dickerson Neal, another woman who came forward accusing Sean Combs of sexual assault, kind of a similar thing. It was like happened one night, I guess. It wasn't an ongoing thing that's been alleged, like Cassie alleged and things like that. So why file in federal court? Joy Dickerson-Neal was filed in New York state court. So what's the play there? Why do you think that happened? Yeah, I think that Ms. McKinney has diversity of citizenship here. Her being a resident of Georgia and Combs and some of the entities that were included in this complaint, as she didn't only just sue Sean Combs, she also sued a number of his companies,

Starting point is 00:06:05 as well as Universal Music Group. All of those entities caused there to be diversity of citizenship amongst the parties. And if the amount in controversy is above a certain amount, you can select to be in federal court. Now she also could have still filed in state court if she so chose, but a number of folks prefer a federal court jurisdiction, depending on how they feel about the judges or the sophistication of the legal issues at play, and will select federal court.

Starting point is 00:06:40 How difficult is it going to be for her to prove these allegations? Because it sounds really awful what happened to her. It sounds like she was enjoying some success. She had modeled for Tommy Hilfiger. She claims she kind of went into a deep depression after this night, that she was anxious, embarrassed, ashamed, you know, common things that sexual assault victims say they feel after something like this. She says he blackballed her. He basically took steps instead of trying to help her as she claims he promised. He actually took steps to hinder her career and that made matters even worse. So how difficult will it be for her to prove those allegations? Because she will have to prove them in court. Yeah, I am assuming that although this was 2003, which as we know, over 20 years ago,

Starting point is 00:07:33 that there will be some issues with people's recollection, perhaps even her own memory of events. But if this episode did take place, there should be some elements of corroboration that are out there. The complaint says that she saved the clothing that she wore that night, which may have some DNA evidence on it. There were obviously others at the place that she met him at. He was with friends. So it wasn't her alone telling this story. She woke up in a taxi cab and somehow she obviously got there.

Starting point is 00:08:22 Someone was driving that cab. It's unclear if she did a rape kit or sought medical attention, but she did mention PTSD, suicide attempts. All of those things are things that should be able to be corroborated by witnesses and documentary evidence. So although this has been a long time since this happened, I do believe that if she's telling the truth, there should be information out there that supports some of the allegations that are made in her complaint. Life doesn't happen biweekly, so why should your payday? I have a way for the money you earn to be in your hands today. It's called EarnIn, and they're sponsoring this show. Earnin is an app that

Starting point is 00:09:05 lets you access your pay as you work. You can get up to $100 per day or up to $750 per pay period. It's very simple. Download Earnin and verify your paycheck. Then you can access up to $100 a day as you work and even leave an optional tip. Any money you access plus tips are automatically repaid from your next paycheck. You could use that cash for anything that comes up. Maybe a dinner out with friends, groceries, everyone needs those, right? Maybe you need to pay your rent or pick up some new clothes. It could be anything really. Using Earnin is easy. You can download it in the Apple App Store or in Google Play.

Starting point is 00:09:46 More than three and a half million people already use it. Why not join them? So try Earnin today. That's spelled E-A-R-N-I-N when you go to the Apple App Store or Google Play. And when you download the Earnin app, type Crime Fix under podcast when you sign up. Again, type Crime Fix. Make sure you do that under podcast. Earnin is a financial technology company, not a bank, and it's subject to your available earnings, daily max, pay period max, and location. Log on to earnin.com slash TOS for details. Bank products are issued by Evolve Bank and Trust member FDIC. The designer named in this lawsuit, it's the designer. You know, there's no name attached to that. Is that a strategic thing?

Starting point is 00:10:32 Is that maybe to protect somebody who could be cooperating with the civil attorneys? I don't understand why this person is not named. Yeah, I think it's an interesting move. It was obviously a strategic move. The idea is that it seems as if whoever this designer is, is someone that she is attempting to spare publicity and notoriety as being someone who was involved in this situation. As her complaint alleges, the designer knew Sean Combs, encouraged her to meet with Sean Combs, even suggested clothing and hair extensions that she should wear in order to make herself more appealing to Sean Combs.

Starting point is 00:11:22 It isn't necessarily the most flattering set of facts for anyone mentioned in this complaint. And obviously, she recognized that this complaint would get a lot of attention, especially in light of the recent release of the video of Sean Combs allegedly beating Cassie at the Intercontinental Hotel. So this is not a complaint that you would want to be necessarily named in. So I think what they're trying to do is keep this person as a friendly, as someone who will support her if push came to shove and this did go to trial. trial and not immediately make them on the front page news with questions to answer about whether or not this happened. So I think it's a strategic play. This could go away. Obviously, the Cassie lawsuit settled the next day. I don't believe this has settled yet, but it can settle at any time. And then we would never need to know who the designer was and that

Starting point is 00:12:25 person's name might be spared. Unfortunately, things have a way of getting out. So I'm not sure how long this designer will go unknown. I'm sure there are theories on who it is already, but I do think it was a strategic decision to try and spare the person publicity in this way. And it almost sounded like the designer was, I mean, obviously he's trying to like make her look hot. I mean, let's, let's just, let's, let's not mince words here. I mean, he's trying to make her look hot for Sean Combs so that he would help her or do whatever. So who knows what the designer knew or what she knew going into this meeting. But it's sad. The allegation is very sad.

Starting point is 00:13:05 I don't ever want to hear about something like this happening to somebody. I've reached out to Sean Combs' people. There's been no statement of response to this yet. So I want to be clear about that. I've also reached out to the attorneys for Crystal McKinney, and they are not commenting beyond the suit at this time. Robin Nunn, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it.

Starting point is 00:13:24 We'll keep an eye on this. Thanks so much. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Model Accuses Diddy of Drugging and Sexual Assault in New Lawsuit

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Model Accuses Diddy of Drugging and Sexual Assault in New Lawsuit

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