Sean “Diddy” Combs, in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., as he awaits trial on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges, was placed on suicide watch by officials, according to sources.
The sources said the suicide watch was routine in high-profile cases and meant to protect Combs.
Attorneys for Combs say they will keep fighting to have their client freed from the facility.
His team wanted him to be placed on house arrest with a $50-million bond, but their request was denied.
U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter said 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, which has housed inmates including R. Kelly and Jeffrey Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, has a history of violence and squalid conditions.
Prosecutors unsealed their indictment against Combs on Tuesday, charging him with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. He pleaded not guilty and was denied bail during that hearing as well.
The indictment alleges that Combs and his associates lured female victims, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship. Combs then 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.” Combs is accused of giving the women ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to “keep them obedient and compliant” during the performances.
The encounters, which prosecutors said sometimes lasted for days, were elaborate productions that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during and often recorded, according to the indictment. Prosecutors allege in a detention memo filed in court that the sex performances occurred regularly from at least 2009 through this year and that the hotel rooms where they were staged often sustained significant damage.
People magazine was the first to report the suicide watch.