Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, awaiting trial on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, has been placed on suicide watch by officials, sources said.
Sources said suicide watch was standard practice in high-profile cases and was intended to protect Combs.
Combs' attorneys say they will continue to fight to have their client released from the facility.
His team wanted him placed under house arrest with a $50 million bond, but their request was denied.
U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter said Wednesday that a bail package that would have kept the hip-hop mogul under house arrest at his Star Island mansion in Miami — with security and no access to cellphones, the Internet or women other than his family — was insufficient to free him pending trial.
The Metropolitan Detention Center, which has housed inmates including R. Kelly and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, has a history of violence and poor conditions.
On Tuesday, prosecutors unsealed the indictment against Combs, charging him with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation for prostitution. Combs pleaded not guilty and was also denied bail during the hearing.
The indictment alleges that Combs and his associates lured women, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship. Combs then allegedly used force, threats of force, coercion and controlled substances to force them to engage in sexual acts with male prostitutes in what Combs refers to as “freak offs.” Combs is accused of giving the women ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to “keep them obedient and docile” during the performances.
The encounters, which prosecutors say sometimes lasted for days, were elaborate productions that Combs organized, directed, masturbated during and often recorded, according to the indictment. Prosecutors allege in a detention memo filed with the court that the sexual performances occurred regularly from at least 2009 through this year and that the hotel rooms where they took place often suffered significant damage.
People magazine was the first to report the suicide sighting.
