Diddy Faces New Lawsuits Through Gender-Motivated Violence Act

Diddy has been hit with new lawsuits filed under the Gender-Motivated Violence Act. Multiple sources have reported that the embattled mogul his now facing four new suits claiming that Diddy drugged and sexually assaulted the plaintiffs on various accounts and periods of time. All the suits were filed in New York as the GMVA window to file a lawsuit against their alleged abuser retroactively comes to an end on March 1, 2025.

Aristalia Benitez is the plaintiff in the first suit, dating her interaction with Diddy to 1995. Benitez claims that she met Sean Combs when she was 20-years-old and living in New York City. While working at Peppe Jeans, she was invited to and attended a party at a restaurant where the Sean John founder was present. She claims to have accepted a “non-alcoholic drink, after which Combs allegedly forcibly groped and fondled [her] breasts, butt, and genital area under her clothes,” per the lawsuit.

Benitez claims to have fallen unconscious and awakened in the back of a cab, where she noticed pain in her groin area. The woman claims she pieced the night together, realizing she had been “vaginally penetrated by Defendant Combs” and some of Combs’ associates at some point.

Justin Gooch, 16 at the time of his alleged recollection, claimed that he was sexually attacked in 1999. At the time, Gooch says that he was living with his grandparents in New Jersey and made a trip to NYC to party at the Tunnel nightclub. It was at this now-defunct venue that the boy claims to have met Diddy, with the entertainer inviting him to join him in a bathroom stall. Combs allegedly gave Gooch ketamine and then “anally penetrated him without consent.” After the attack, Diddy allegedly asked the underaged teenager, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Leslie Cockrell’s suit claims that she was attacked by the Hip-Hop icon in 1999 when she was 24 years of age. Cockrell attended one of Puffy’s famous Hampton parties, where she drank a cocktail Combs offered her. Before drifting in and out of consciousness, the suit states that Leslie remembered seeing the house “packed inside and outside with naked people who were engaging in sexual activities together.” As she awakened, Cockrell was met with Diddy allegedly having sex with her without her consent. Combs then demanded that the woman not tell anyone what transpired at the party.

Kendra Haffoney filed the fourth suit against Sean Combs and VH1. She claims that she was an employee of a designer showroom in Los Angeles in 2007. Haffoney stated that she had been working on the VH1 show I Want to Work for Diddy, where she was eventually invited to an afterparty. At the event, she claims to have been guided to a backroom where Diddy and other unnamed associates were chilling out. Kendra claims to have started feeling lightheaded as Diddy allegedly “guided her head down to have her perform oral sex on him.” Haffoney eventually passed out and then woke up to find Sean Combs at the end of the bed, and “her vaginal area felt sore.” The designer later states that she was then invited back to Combs’ mansion, where the abuse continued.  

Sean Combs’ representatives responded to the lawsuits in a statement to Variety, stating, “No matter how many lawsuits are filed—especially by individuals who refuse to put their own names behind their claims—it won’t change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone—man or woman, adult or minor. This lawsuit is nothing more than a collection of media headlines stitched together with fragments from other lawsuits and baseless rumors. With the deadline for New York’s Gender-Motivated Violence Act expiring tomorrow, opportunists are scrambling to file last-minute, meritless claims. We live in a world where anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason, but that does not make the claims true. Mr. Combs is confident he will prevail in court.”