Sean “Diddy” Combs accused of sexual harassment in eighth trial

An eighth person has filed a lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs, accusing the controversial mogul of sexual assault, battery, negligent infliction of emotional distress and violation of the Gender-Based Violence Victims Protection Act, according to court documents obtained by The Times.

April Lampros, whose lawyers filed the lawsuit in New York on Thursday, is the seventh person to accuse Combs of sexual harassment in recent months. She also sued Bad Boy Records and Arista Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, for allegedly enabling Combs’ behavior.

His representatives did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment on Friday.

In her lawsuit, Lampros said she experienced “four horrific sexual encounters” with Combs in the mid-1990s and early 2000s. She was discouraged from discussing her relationship with Combs because “he did not want anyone to know he was seeing her because she is a white woman,” the lawsuit states.

Lampros met Combs in early 1994 while she was studying at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, the lawsuit says. When Combs learned of her interest in the fashion industry, she offered her mentorship and promised her job opportunities.

Combs “love bombarded” her, she claimed, by repeatedly sending her gifts and flowers and inviting her to events. The “friendly gestures” then turned into an “aggressive, coercive and abusive relationship based on sex,” the lawsuit says.

In 1995, Lampros met with Combs and an unnamed woman at a bar in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood, the lawsuit says. The group drank “light drinks” throughout the evening. Lampros said she felt compelled to do so because of Combs’ “delusional and violent outbursts.”

After “a few sips of a drink,” Lampros said in the filing, “she began to feel unwell.” The group left the bar and went to the Millennium Hotel, where Combs allegedly “forcefully lay on top of her.”

Despite her pleas, Combs raped Lampros, the indictment says. The next morning, she was “naked, sore and confused” and quickly left the building.

Combs “lured Lampros back” by using his influence in the music industry, the lawsuit says. The second incident allegedly occurred months later in a parking garage near Combs’ Manhattan apartment, where the “slightly intoxicated” mogul forced Lampros to his knees, the lawsuit says.

Combs “quickly unzipped his pants” and demanded that Lampros perform oral sex on him while a parking garage attendant watched nearby, the lawsuit states. When Lampros attempted to distance himself from Combs, he “immediately changed his course of action and became angry, threatening and violent,” the lawsuit states.

“She felt that if she disobeyed him, he would take away her dreams of a career in that world,” the lawsuit said. “Mr. Combs would also threaten to blacklist her from the industry if she tried to mess with him in any way.”

In 1996, Combs “forced” Lampros and Kim Porter, one of his ex-girlfriends, to take ecstasy pills after a night of drinking. He then “demanded” Porter to have sex with Lampros, the lawsuit says. (Porter died of pneumonia in 2018.)

“Ms. Lampros knew she had to comply because she had witnessed what happens when someone stands up to Mr. Combs,” the document states. Combs allegedly masturbated while watching the women and then raped Lampros, the lawsuit says.

Lampros said she cut ties with Combs around 1998 because she had “suffered enough.” The two crossed paths in late 2000 or early 2001 at an event at Rockefeller Center, where he told her he missed her. At the time, Combs was dating Jennifer Lopez, who is now married to Ben Affleck.

Combs allegedly called Lampros several times that day and asked her to come to his home. Communication continued for days later, the filing states, and Lampros “reluctantly and regretfully” invited Combs to her apartment to “hear what he had to say.” At the apartment, Lampros said, Combs apologized for his earlier behavior and then made sexual advances to her, which she rebuffed.

“Out of the blue,” the lawsuit says, Combs “forcibly grabbed” Lampros and “touched her against her will.” Lampros said she fought him off and ordered him to leave, speaking loudly enough for his bodyguard stationed outside the door to hear.

“I am confident that justice will prevail and the veil will be lifted so that no other woman will have to endure what I went through,” Lampros said in a statement to CNN on Thursday.

In a lawsuit filed earlier this week, former model Crystal McKinney also accused Combs of sexual assault. In addition to numerous sexual assault allegations dating back decades, Combs is at the center of a federal investigation into sex trafficking allegations.

Combs apologized publicly on Sunday after CNN released footage last week of him brutally attacking his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura in a Century City hotel in 2016. Ventura had accused Combs of sexual assault, among other things, in a civil lawsuit last year.

A day later, the two agreed to a settlement that, according to Combs’ lawyers, did not constitute an admission of wrongdoing.