Diddy Victim Awarded $100 Million

Source: Scott Dudelson / Getty

Deeply embattled music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is now burdened by another successful civil lawsuit filed by another victim of his alleged sick and abusive ways.

According to the Detroit Metro Times, 51-year-old Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, an inmate at Earnest C. Brooks Correctional Facility in Muskegon Heights, Michigan, has been awarded a $100 million default judgment against Diddy, who he accused of drugging and sexually assaulting him at a party in Detroit in 1997.

According to court documents, the Bad Boy founder and CEO failed to file any responses or make any court appearances regarding Cardello-Smith’s allegations. A default judgment is made when either the plaintiff in a case or, in this case, the defendant fails to respond to a summons or fails to appear in court. In a statement to USA Today, Diddy’s attorney Marc Agnifilo denied the allegations, said his client doesn’t even know the plaintiff, and implied the case would be appealed and the lawsuit ultimately tossed out.

“This man is a convicted felon and sexual predator, who has been sentenced on 14 counts of sexual assault and kidnapping over the last 26 years,” Agnifilo said of Cardello-Smith. “His resume now includes committing a (sic) fraud in the court from prison, as Mr. Combs has never heard of him, let alone been served with any lawsuit. Mr. Combs looks forward to having this judgment swiftly dismissed.”

Cardello-Smith, who represented himself in the case against Diddy, is currently serving a sentence of up to 75 years for first-degree criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping charges from 2008 and 2019, respectively. He was also convicted on separate third-degree sexual conduct charges in 1998.

From USA Today:

According to court documents, Cardello-Smith claimed he met Diddy at an after party at a Detroit Holiday Inn in June 1997. He drank with the music mogul and female guests, at first thinking the producer was a “really decent normal guy.” Cardello-Smith later joined Diddy and two women in private hotel room flanked by two guards, he alleged.

Cardello-Smith claimed he began to have sex with one of the women when he felt Diddy touch his buttocks. The interaction led Cardello-Smith to disengage, and when the rapper noticed, he allegedly offered Cardello-Smith a drink.

“I stayed sitting there and began getting drowsy and started to pass out,” he wrote in his June complaint. “Then Sean Combs said to me ‘I added a little something to it for you. I will get that from you anyway, one way or another.'”

Cardello-Smith alleged he woke up to find himself bleeding and in pain. “I ran out and left and never went back,” he wrote. The inmate claims he filed a police report, later alleging the producer “paid Detroit and Monroe Police Officers to keep it hidden.” He claimed he “shut down” because he “knew that I was never going to be able to tell anyone about this.”

According to the Times, Cardello-Smith produced records showing Diddy visited him in prison, apparently, to bribe him into dropping the lawsuit. He said Diddy offered him $2.3 million to dismiss the lawsuit, but he rejected the offer. In early August, Lenawee County Circuit Court Judge Anna Marie Anzalone, who awarded Cardello-Smith the default judgment, issued an order “to prevent Combs from selling assets that could potentially be used to compensate Cardello-Smith for possible damages,” the Times reported.