An eighth person has filed a lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs, accusing the embattled mogul of sexual assault, battery, negligent infliction of emotional distress and violation of the Gender-Based Violence Victims Protection Act, according to reviewed court documents by The Times. .
April Lampros, whose attorneys filed the lawsuit Thursday in New York, is the seventh person to accuse Combs of sexual assault 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 Friday to The Times' request for comment.
In her lawsuit, Lampros said she endured “four terrifying sexual encounters” with Combs in the mid-1990s and early 2000s. She was discouraged from talking about her relationship with Combs because “he didn't want anyone to know he was seeing her because “She is a white woman,” the lawsuit says.
Lampros met Combs in early 1994, when she was a college student at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, according to the lawsuit. Upon learning of her interest in the fashion industry, Combs offered to mentor her and promised her job opportunities.
Combs “love bombed” her, she claimed, repeatedly sending her gifts and flowers and inviting her to events. The “kind gestures” then led to an “aggressive, coercive and abusive relationship based on sex,” according to the lawsuit.
In 1995, Lampros met with Combs and an unnamed woman at a bar in New York's SoHo neighborhood, the lawsuit alleges. The group “drank lightly” throughout the night, and Lampros said she felt pressured to do so because of Combs' “violent and delusional outbursts.”
After “a few sips of a drink,” Lampros said in the filing, “she began to feel uncomfortable.” The group left the bar and headed to the Millennium Hotel, where Combs allegedly “forced himself on top of her.”
Despite her pleas, Combs raped Lampros, the lawsuit alleges. The next morning, she said, she was “naked, sore and confused” and she quickly left the building.
Combs “lured” Lampros by taking advantage of his influence in the music industry, according to the lawsuit. The second incident allegedly occurred months later in a parking lot near Combs' Manhattan apartment, where the “slightly intoxicated” mogul forced Lampros to kneel, according to the lawsuit.
Combs “quickly unbuttoned his pants” and demanded Lampros perform oral sex on him while a parking attendant watched nearby, according to the lawsuit. When Lampros attempted to distance himself from Combs, he said, he “immediately changed his approach and became angry, threatening and forceful.”
“She felt that if she disobeyed him, he would take away her dreams of pursuing a career in this world,” the lawsuit contended. “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 partying. He then “demanded” that Porter have sexual relations with Lampros, the lawsuit alleges. (Porter died of pneumonia in 2018.)
“EM. Lampros knew he had to comply because he had witnessed what happens to someone who challenges Mr. Combs,” the document says. Combs allegedly masturbated while watching the women and then raped Lampros, according to the lawsuit.
Lampros said he cut ties with Combs around 1998, after having “suffered quite a bit.” The two crossed paths in late 2000 or early 2001 at a Rockefeller Center event, 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 him to come to his apartment. The communication continued days later, according to the document, prompting Lampros to “reluctantly and regrettably” invite Combs to his apartment to “listen to what he had to say.” At the apartment, Lampros said, Combs apologized for her past behavior and then made sexual advances, which she rejected.
“Out of nowhere,” the lawsuit alleges, Combs “violently grabbed” Lampros and “touched her against her will.” Lampros said she rebuffed him and ordered him to leave her, speaking loudly so her bodyguard stationed outside the door could hear him.
“I am confident that justice will prevail and the veil will be removed so that no other woman has to endure what I did,” Lampros told CNN in a statement 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 publicly apologized Sunday after CNN last week published footage of him violently attacking his ex Casandra “Cassie” Ventura at a Century City hotel in 2016. Ventura accused Combs of sexual assault, among other accusations, in a civil lawsuit last year.
A day later, the two reached a settlement that Combs' lawyers said did not constitute an admission of wrongdoing.
