Woman set to expose top music moguls for 'helping Diddy with abuse'

A former music label worker has vowed to single-handedly take down the bigwigs who aided Sean “Diddy” Combs in his alleged campaign of abuse.

Dorothy Carvello, 62, was the only female talent scout at a big-name record company back in the 1980s, whose bosses went on to propel Combs to global stardom.

Last month, when the 54-year-old hip-hop mogul was arrested on charges including sex trafficking, prostitution and racketeering, Carvello was busy lodging her own lawsuit against Atlantic Records and a number of former executives.

She is accusing the men of driving a “culture of silence” around the sexual exploitation of women and, in an interview with The Sunday Times, she said that Diddy’s criminal indictment came as no surprise.

“Everybody in the music business knew about him,” she told the paper, stressing: “It will come out who enabled this.

“Money is God in this industry,” she added. “It doesn’t matter who is sacrificed along the way.”

Carvello then noted: “I believe that when [prosecutors] really start subpoenaing the records of the music companies, they’ll see how many NDAs [non-disclosure agreements] there are and how much more was covered up."

Dorothy Carvello (left) stands with lawyer Ben Crump as they announce a lawsuit against a number of Atlantic Records' executives (Getty Images)

Combs stands accused of using his entertainment empire to exploit victims over a period of nearly two decades, and of using his power and influence to ensure that his alleged crimes were covered up.

So far, the identities of Diddy’s so-called “enablers” remain a secret. However, prosecutors and lawyers for the alleged victims have pledged to reveal the names of “many powerful people” who played a part in the 54-year-old’s alleged offences.

Attorney Tony Buzbee, who is representing 120 of Combs’s accusers, said he would begin filing actions in the coming days that will identify a number of co-defendants, including members of Combs’s family and guests at his parties.

Combs held debauched sexual gatherings known as “freak-offs” at hotels which were such an “open secret,” they became notorious in the industry, The Sunday Times reports.

Buzbee claims that much of the alleged abuse took place at these events: “Typically after-parties, album-release parties, New Year’s Eve parties, Fourth of the July parties, something they call a Puffy Party.”

According to Combs’s indictment, his associates allegedly booked suites, recruited sex workers and used illegal drugs to coerce partygoers into sex.

In some cases they were allegedly lured in with cash and the promise of career opportunities, in others they were forced to attend these “freak-offs” under threat of physical violence.

The parties were also filmed and the footage was allegedly used by Combs to pressure his victims into staying quiet, the indictment adds.

Diddy's so-called "freak-offs" became an open secret in the music industry(Getty Images)

Buzbee promised: “We will expose those who enabled this conduct behind closed doors [and] we will pursue this matter no matter who the evidence implicates.”

Already, some of Combs’s former friends have started to go public about what they witnessed at these parties.

Mark Curry, a hip-hop artist signed to the Bad Boy label in 1997, talked about seeing drinks being spiked and women being drugged at parties “back in the day”.

He told the Art of Dialogue podcast: “We would go to the club and there would be two lines of bottles: regular Moët and others that made the girls real slippery. We knew what the drill was,” “[It] was part of the hip-hop culture. We didn’t see nothing wrong with it.”

The alleged involvement of Combs’s employees and associates in his alleged crimes have allowed prosecutors to charge his business enterprise with racketeering – a felony most commonly associated with organised criminal organisations, including the mafia.

Anna Cominsky, director of the Criminal Defence Clinic at New York Law School, told The Sunday Times, that this charge posed the biggest challenge to Diddy’s defence.

“The main issue for Combs is the racketeering allegation — that this is not just his personal conduct but rather that he had this whole organisation that was helping him to facilitate criminal activity,” she said.

Those implicated could be cut a deal in return for co-operating against the 54-year-old, she said. However, they face serious charges, including sex trafficking, forced labour, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.

Combs, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, after being denied bail.

His lawyer has stressed that the former hip-hop star “emphatically and categorically denies as false and defamatory any claim that he sexually abused anyone, including minors,” adding: “He looks forward to proving his innocence and vindicating himself in court, where the truth will be established based on evidence, not speculation."

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings