By the end of the week, a jury is expected to be formed at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal judgment of sex trafficking. It is an impressive twist to the one who was an influential name in music, a man who reached the status of billionaire as rapper, producer and entrepreneur.
Combs declared innocent of the criminal accusations that include extortion conspiracy, sexual traffic e transport for prostitution. If condemned, he can be sentenced to life imprisonment. Regardless of the result, The legal problems of Combs will not end with your criminal trial. He faces More than 60 civil actions in which it is accused of sexual aggression or other irregularities. He denied all the allegations.
Lawyer Andrew Van Arsdale, which represents 37 individuals who have already presented civil actions of sexual assault against Combs, told the CNN in an exclusive interview that has More than 400 new potential civil actions.
The lawyer said he intends to present civil actions against Combs after the criminal trial, largely because his clients fear possible retaliation if the veteran of the difficult difficulty industry is acquitted.
“From the perspective of my clients, the reason they hesitated so much to present themselves for so long, in many cases, it was because of the power that this individual exercised and the threats to his professional opportunities that they felt he could create,” said Van Arsdale.
“I think there is the idea that, ‘my God, and if, and if he is not considered guilty of these accusations, right? What if he is back on the streets in two months? What would have happened to me if I had made these allegations?’
“I hear about it every day. Our customers are still scared,” he added.
An “influx of telephone calls”
Van Arsdale operates a call center through his company, Reciprocity Industries, based in Billings, Montana. The company was established in 2008, long before the allegations against Combs began to emerge.
For years, the Central has helped analyze the complaints of the callers on legal issues ranging from the recovery of natural disasters to allegations of sexual aggression, assisting law firms in processing complaints for disputes and spreading the direct line as a means by which companies can get potential customers.
According to the company’s website, reciprocity employs more than 150 legal screening professionals and its services were hired by more than 500 law firms in the United States.
Van Arsdale litred up cases of sexual abuse against the boy scouts of America and the Catholic Church. His law firm, Ava Law Group, represents dozens of alleged combing victims who have been discovered through its reciprocity call center, which The New York Times recently reported being the “central collection point” of allegations of sexual aggression against comb.
Call records received show that the reciprocity industries received almost 27 thousand connections related to CombsDisse of Arsdale.
After discarding pranches and queries not listed or non -reliable, the company estimates that approximately 15,000 calls included allegations of Comb abuse. Through what he described as a rigorous investigation process, Van Arsdale said he believed that there are over 400 new potential civilians.
They called them lawyers like Van Arsdale “ambulance hunters.”
“Yes, we need a large system to deal with the influx of telephone calls, and yes, we need a very serious investigation to ensure that we are presenting the allegations that need to be treated in the civil court, but that’s what this process is,” said Van Arsdale.
A CNN He contacted the Comb team to comment on Van Arsdale’s claim that he is working on hundreds of additional potential civil actions. Previously, the lawyers of Combs told the CNN That he “never assaulted sexually or trafficked anyone – male or female, adult or smaller.”
“No number of lawsuits, sensational allegations or media staging will change this reality,” they added in a statement at the time.
Seeking “healing” and “accountability”
It is not just Van Arsdale who is facing Combs. At least a dozen lawyers represent the plaintiffs who presented civil actions against Combs. Most allegations are not related, covering decades with alleged incidents occurring in various locations in different states.
Of the more than 60 civil cases already presented against Combs, two were removed-one, presented by an anonymous who refused to comply with a court order to reveal his identity, and another against Combs and Jay-Z, which was after Jay-Z denied the allegations and various inconsistencies arose in his report.
The Comb team took advantage of inconsistencies in at least two reports of Van Arsdale’s clients: the woman who accused Combs and Jay-Z and an anonymous man who gave details in an interview with CNN In December 2024 they did not correspond to his process, including the year he claims to have been drugged and sexually assaulted by Combs at one of his parties.
Van Arsdale said inconsistencies in man’s history were due to an administrative error in the record. After the CNN interview, the office re -presented an amended complaint.
Although civil and criminal cases are separated, Van Arsdale said some of his clients have cooperated with federal authorities in the criminal case of Combs and can be called to witness during their trial.
“This is an opportunity that they might think they would never have, to see the system working,” he said.
Van Arsdale said he seeks justice for his clients, regardless of the outcome of criminal trial.
“My clients will be ecstatic if and when he is convicted, guilty and arrested,” he said. “But the next step in its healing process is liability for what happened to them.”
