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Sean “Diddy” Combs is accused of sexual assault in a new lawsuit filed by the former winner of the MTV show “Model Mission”

Sean “Diddy” Combs was accused of sexual assault in a new lawsuit filed Tuesday. The plaintiff was Crystal McKinney, a former model and winner of the MTV competition show “Model Mission” in 1998.

According to the lawsuit filed in New York and obtained by CNN, McKinney claims she was “drugged and sexually assaulted” by Combs in 2003 following a Men’s Fashion Week event in New York City.

McKinney, who was 22 at the time, first met Combs at a dinner where he approached her “in a sexually suggestive manner” and told her to call him later, the lawsuit says. McKinney “was confused but hopeful that Combs would keep his promises and help her career,” and Combs invited her to his recording studio that same evening, the lawsuit says.

At the studio, Combs offered McKinney marijuana, which she said was “laced” with “a narcotic or other intoxicating substance.” The lawsuit alleges that Combs saw that McKinney was “very intoxicated” and told her to follow him while he “physically” led her to the restroom.

In the bathroom, Combs began kissing her without her consent and later forced her to perform oral sex on him, the indictment says.

After the assault, McKinney claims she felt “increasingly lightheaded and then lost consciousness.” She later woke up in a taxi that drove her back to the apartment of the designer she was working with at the time. “When she regained consciousness, the plaintiff realized that she had been sexually assaulted by Combs,” the lawsuit states.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Combs and McKinney for comment, as well as representatives for Bad Boy Records, Sean John Clothing LLC and Universal Music Group Inc., whose companies were also named as defendants.

McKinney is suing the defendants for violating New York’s Gender-Based Violence Victims Protection Act.

According to the New York City Council, the law “gives survivors of gender-motivated violence more time to bring civil action by extending the statute of limitations” and “also applies to acts committed by parties who instruct, facilitate, participate in, or conspire to commit a gender-motivated act of violence.”

McKinney was named the winner of the MTV Model Mission in 1998 and received a modeling contract with IMG. She became a familiar face on various MTV shows and modeled in a fashion campaign for designer Tommy Hilfiger.

As a result of the incident, McKinney became “severely depressed” and “developed an addiction to alcohol and drugs” while trying to cope, the lawsuit said. To this day, the lawsuit says, McKinney continues to suffer mental health issues as a result of the alleged assault and has since given up her modeling career.

She is demanding punitive damages and compensation of an unknown amount.

Latest lawsuit in a series against Combs

This latest lawsuit comes days after CNN released exclusive surveillance footage showing Combs physically assaulting his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in 2016.

The attack was first mentioned in a November 2023 lawsuit Ventura filed against the rap mogul, whom she dated intermittently from 2007 to 2018.

In her complaint, which was settled a day after it was filed, Ventura alleged that Combs raped her in 2018 and subjected her to repeated physical and other abuse over the course of their relationship for years.

After the settlement, a lawyer for Combs said that the “decision to settle the litigation … in no way represents an admission of wrongdoing.”

Combs apologized on Sunday for his behavior in the video.

Ventura’s lawyer Meredith Firetog criticized his reaction, saying: “When Cassie and several other women came forward, he denied everything and suggested that his victims were only after money.”

This is the seventh lawsuit in which Combs has been named in recent months. Six of those lawsuits, including the one filed Tuesday, contain allegations of sexual assault. One of the six lawsuits names Combs as a defendant, but it was brought against Combs’ son, Christian Combs. Only Ventura’s lawsuit has been settled.

Authorities raided Diddy’s home on March 25, 2024, because he is the target of a federal investigation by a Department of Homeland Security team investigating human trafficking crimes, according to a senior federal official briefed on the investigation.

The investigation is based on many of the same allegations of sexual assault that were made in the civil lawsuits, according to a second law enforcement source familiar with the searches.

CNN’s Sandra Gonzalez contributed to this report.

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