Law&Crime Sidebar - P. Diddy’s Son Caught on Tape Sexually Assaulting Yacht Steward: Lawsuit

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

A new plaintiff, Grace O’Marcaigh, is accusing Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and his son Christian “King” Combs of assault in a new civil filing in Los Angeles. O’Marcaigh says she was working as a steward in 2022 when Christian Combs assaulted her in a yacht’s makeshift recording studio. Music producer Lil Rod Jones was also reportedly in the room and claims to have audio recordings of the incident. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down the latest lawsuit.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Another civil lawsuit, but this time it is his son that is the main defendant. A woman accuses Christian King Combs of sexual. assaulting her on a yacht. We are going to break down this latest legal action as Sean Combs remains embroiled in an apparent sex trafficking investigation. Welcome to Sidebar,

presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. We told you just the other day, right here on Sidebar, that the attorney who filed one of these bombshell lawsuits against Sean Diddy Combs, on behalf of his client, a former Diddy producer named Rodney Jones, would likely be filing another suit against Combs' son Christian, and that has just happened. Yes, in fact, the yacht incident, which we're going to get into, was mentioned in Jones's lawsuit against Diddy, with Jones claiming in the complaint that he had personal knowledge that Christian drugged and sexually assaulted a woman. And a footnote was included that a complaint would be forthcoming.

Now, at the time, I was wondering if Jones would be the one suing Christian. After all, he already sued Christian's brother and Diddy's other son, Justin. But I was struggling to figure out what would be his cause of action against Christian. Well, it turns out that Jones is not suing Christian. It is actually the woman who was allegedly assaulted by Christian and she is being repped by Jones's lawyer. I will explain. So first, this development comes almost two weeks after Diddy's homes in Miami and Los Angeles

were raided by Homeland Security Investigators. It's part of a sweeping sex trafficking investigation by the Southern District of New York, or at least that's what it's being reported. That's what sources from law enforcement. are indicating. Now, Diddy's two sons, Justin and Christian, they were seen in handcuffs outside of that L.A. home during the raid. They weren't under arrest. They were merely detained while officers were assessing the situation and going into the home. But Diddy, Justin, and Christian, they have all been named in these very big lawsuits. But remember, that is civil.

That is the civil arena. None of them have been arrested or charged with any crime related to this apparent criminal investigation. But our analysts here on Saibar expect that at least one arrest will be coming soon. But now we fast forward to Thursday when attorney Tyrone Blackburn, the man already representing Rodney Jones, filed a civil complaint on behalf of his client, Grace O'Markey, I apologize if I'm mispronouncing for last name, but I believe it is O'Markey. Grace O'Markey in Los Angeles Superior Court, accusing 26-year-old Christian Combs, of drugging her and sexually assaulting her in December of 2022 when she was working in a charter boat in St. Martin.

So according to the lawsuit, Markey says that she had been working as a steward providing food and drinks on that yacht for a 12-hour period. And she was 25 years old at the time. She believed that the trip would be a, quote, wholesome family excursion, but says it, quote, turned into a hedonistic environment, even describing rampant drug use among sex workers,

and celebrities who came on board. She believes that the alcohol in the yacht had been laced with drugs because she says women would have one drink and then almost immediately pass out or start falling over. This is, by the way, something that it was also alleged in Jones's lawsuit that Combs would spike the drinks of different people. But focusing on Christian Combs, Markey says that Christian Combs had been staying at a villa on the shore

but that he would come onto the yacht in the evening to party. And on December 28, 2022, Christian reportedly arrived, very intoxicated, and then proceeded to pressure O'Markey to take shots of tequila. She did. Christian allegedly tried to get her to drink more in the yacht's makeshift studio. O'Markey alleges that Christian kissed her neck, kissed her face as he groped her legs, breasts, and private areas. O'Markey reportedly told Christian, quote, excuse me you don't touch my legs like that i'll move my legs where i want to if i want to do this then i will you don't touch my legs like that markey then says that she told christian she couldn't stay with him unless it was approved by a supervisor all of whom she knew would be

asleep at the time so this was a way for her to get out of the situation she claims that christian said who can i talk to i'm going to say i requested you right now Well, Markey then says she responded with, quote, Well, you can take your hand off my ass for the first thing. O'Markey says that she tried to go back to her work, but Christian found her again, wanted her to find him a place to sleep for the night. So she ended up taking him to the cinema room for the yacht,

which doubled as a place for people to sleep. And she claims that is when Christian blocked her and groped her, took off his clothes, tried to force her to perform oral sex on him. she says that she was able to fight him off until someone came in. Now, the lawsuit goes on to say that O'Markey told the yacht captain what happened the very next day, but he didn't believe her, didn't do any sort of real investigation. She says the captain retaliated against her for months after the alleged assault before ultimately firing her in May of 2023.

Now, aside from her account, aside from a potential other witness, right, the person that allegedly walked in on this. What proof is there that this happened? Well, she reportedly has photos of the bruises that she says were caused by this event with Christian Combs. But she also claims that in that studio, during that first interaction at the time, was Rodney Jones, that former Diddy music producer I mentioned,

the one who is suing Diddy. He's known as Little Rod Jones. Remember, he had been basically living with Diddy while the two worked on his latest album. As we discussed on previous sidebars, Jones made multiple allegations against Diddy in his own lawsuit saying that there was rampant drinking, drug use, sexual assault during Diddy's parties. He claims that he was groped by Diddy, that he was the victim of sex trafficking as he was forced to engage in sex acts with sex workers. He even claims that Diddy groomed him for homosexual sex and facilitated for him to be sexually abused by actor Cuba Gooding Jr. He also claims that there are hours of audio and video footage documenting Diddy's alleged crimes and misconduct. And according to Ms. O'Markey, Jones taped this event with her.

Yes, the lawsuit provides transcripts of audio recordings, and these also, body recordings purportedly show, or you can hear kissing sounds, her telling combs not to touch her, her allegedly asking about whether she was drugged. Now, we haven't heard these tapes here on law and crime yet, but if they are what they purport to be, that is a huge piece of evidence. And remember, we're talking a civil case, we're talking lawsuits, the burden of proof is much lower than a criminal case. It's just preponderance of the evidence, more likely than not that this happened. So the civil suit accuses Christian of assault, battery, sexual assault,

and intentional infliction of emotional distress. There are a big part of this lawsuit. She goes into the mental anguish that she has gone through, the emotional harm that she has suffered as a result of that. It's important in order to prove damages. And by the way, she is claiming unspecified damages, so she hasn't put a number amount on it. But Diddy, let's go back to him, he is also named as a defendant, he is accused of aiding and abetting Christian's behavior, as well as having premises liability because he was the leaseholder of the yacht. Now, premises liability means that you have a duty to keep people on your property safe

from injuries. We actually saw a lot of that same kind of theory in the Jones' lawsuit when he was talking about this shooting that happened at Chalice Studios and the owners and occupiers of that studio should just be as responsible as the people who allegedly engaged in that shooting that he was present for. Now, by the way, not sure if these new allegations could play a role in a future federal criminal prosecution of Combs. We're talking so much about the investigation into them.

It could be that this is just an isolated incident here and could not be part of a sex trafficking charge. Although I do wonder if this Christian Combs incident or alleged incident could be part of a potential RICO or racketeering charge. As I mentioned on a previous sidebar, when I laid out potential charges that Diddy could face, if we are talking about conspiracy to violate the RICO statute, RICO organized crime, that's what I'm talking about here. that there was a criminal enterprise, to prove that you would need to show that there was an agreement to break the law, there was an agreement to have this criminal enterprise, and that there were steps or overt acts that were taken in furtherance of that criminal enterprise. Overt acts don't even have to be crimes. They could just be events.

They could be things that happen. So could this be an example of an overt act? Could this be an overt act to further this enterprise of a legal, sex and power could be a stretch. Yes, just something that came to my mind. Now, Ms. O'Markey, her attorney, Tyrone Blackburn, said after this lawsuit was filed, quote, like father like son, it gives us no joy or pleasure in filing this suit against Christian Combs, who has clearly adopted his father's pattern and practice of depravity. So far, there has been no response from Christian or his attorney at the time of this lawsuit.

But a little side note about Tyrone Blackburn, the attorney representing Ms. O'Markey and Mr. Jones. United States District Court judge for the Southern District of New York, Denise Coat, had some very harsh words for Mr. Blackburn and has even submitted a referral to the New York Federal Court grievance committee, claiming issues with Blackburn in five cases. In her order, she writes, quote, Significant resources have been spent by judges of the court and defendants named in actions he has filed to address glaring deficiencies in his filings. A referral to this court's grievance committee is warranted. Judge Coat goes on to write, quote,

A reasonable inference from Blackburn's pattern of behavior is that he improperly files cases in federal court to garner media attention, embarrassed defendants with salacious allegations and pressure defendants to settle quickly. She goes on to write, indeed, his submissions to this court have been rife with disturbing allegations against the defendants and defense counsel. So the big theme here is that he allegedly files lawsuits in the wrong jurisdictions and courts and even allegedly called a defense attorney, quote, a disgusting racist. Now, this is being reported by Billboard, and in fact, Blackburn wrote an email to Billboard, responding to Judge Coat's order, saying, quote, not sure how this is at all relevant to Rodney

Jones's case or any other case I have, this will not have any impact on my ability to proceed in Mr. Jones's case, although Judge Coates' decision was a referral to the SDNY's grievance committee and not a sanction, I plan on appealing the decision. But remember, the Jones lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York, a federal court. So it does seem to have some impact, if you ask me. And look, while we don't know the specifics of these allegations, they do come on the heels of other criticism from other lawyers. After Blackburn filed the lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Jones, Combs' attorney, Sean Holly, alleged that Blackburn ignored basically exonerating evidence. The quote was, our attempts to share this proof with Mr. Jones's attorney, Tyrone Blackburn, have been ignored as Mr. Blackburn refuses to return our calls.

Holly goes on to say, we will address these outlandish allegations in court and take all appropriate action against those who make them. Then the attorneys for Universal Music Group, one of the defendants who are also being sued by Rodney Jones for their alleged participation and facilitation of the abuse and trafficking claimed by Jones, They argued that the claims were so, quote, offensively false that one of these attorneys, Donald Zakarin, wrote, A license to practice law is a privilege. Mr. Blackburn, plaintiff's lawyer, has misused that license to self-promote gratuitously, falsely, and recklessly accusing the UMG defendants of criminal behavior. So a lot of back and forth that we're seeing right here. And again, to be clear, everything that Diddy and his. his sons are facing our accusations.

They haven't even been criminally charged. These are civil lawsuits. There has been no finding by a judge or a jury that they are liable at this point. Having said all of that, this is a very significant development, and we will see where it goes next. That is all we have to hear on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your

podcast. Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.