Jailed rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs was the victim of a terrifying knife attack at the hands of a fellow inmate who snuck into his cell and held a makeshift blade to his throat, according to a friend of the disgraced music mogul.
Diddy, 55, who was sentenced to four years behind bars earlier this month after being found guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, is currently serving out his time inside the “horrific” Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, NY, where the likes of Ghislaine Maxwell and R. Kelly have previously been held.
The notorious federal jail has been branded “hell on Earth” by former inmates and has a shocking history of inmate violence, murder, and suicides, according to multiple reports.
Now, according to Diddy’s friend Charlucci Finney, the rapper has fallen prey to one of those acts of violence, having awoken in the night to find another inmate holding “a knife to his throat.”
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Finney, who has known Diddy for more than three decades, said that the attack appears to have been carried out as a warning rather than an actual assault, noting that the aggressor could easily have “harmed” the music mogul if he had wanted to.
“He woke up with a knife to his throat,” Finney said, adding that this isn’t the first time the music producer has been nearly injured inside the jail.
“I don’t know whether he fought him off or the guards came, I just know that it happened. If this guy had wanted to harm him, Sean would have been harmed. It would only take a second to cut his throat with a weapon and kill him.
“It was probably a way to say, ‘Next time you ain’t gonna be so lucky.’ Everything is intimidation. But with Sean, it won’t work. Sean is from Harlem.”
Finney did not reveal when the attack took place—although his recounting of the incident comes just days after Diddy revealed that he plans to appeal his sentence and conviction.
Lawyers for the musician filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. federal court on Oct. 20, informing officials of their plan to move forward in their bid to overturn his conviction.
The filing, submitted by Alexandra Shapiro, does not specify the grounds on which the rapper’s legal team will base the appeal, but his attorneys have previously argued that Diddy’s conviction should not stand because the statute regarding transportation for the purposes of prostitution does not apply.
Combs’ lawyers have previously pleaded with the courts to transfer the music producer from the jail due to its long history of violence. Their concerns didn’t come without cause, as the facility—which is the only federal jail in New York City—has been plagued with issues since it began holding inmates in the 1990s.
At one point, conditions were so stark that judges even refused to send people to the center, which houses 1,200 detainees, according to the Associated Press.
The prison features outdoor recreation facilities, a medical unit, a dental suite, an educational program, and a library.
However, inmates have long lamented the violence, lack of staff, shower bans, and smuggling of drugs and contraband, some of which they claim is encouraged by jail staff.
According to the outlet, a minimum of four people have committed suicide in the past three years in the facility.
Furthermore, six of the MDC employees have been charged with crimes over the span of five years. Many were accused of accepting bribes or supplying inmates with contraband such as drugs, cellphones, and cigarettes, according to the AP.
The conditions prompted Combs’ team to call for the rapper to await trial—which is expected to take four weeks— under house arrest at his swanky $48 million Miami mansion.
“It’s a very difficult place to be an inmate,” Combs’ attorney Marc Agnifilo said.
At the time, his request was denied by a judge, who branded Combs a “flight risk,” leaving him residing in the jail for nearly a year.
And, if he is convicted, Combs could sit in the 3-by-5-foot cell for the remainder of his life.
Michael Cohen, former fixer for President Donald Trump, previously told CNN, “He’s waking up on a steel bed with a 1.5-inch mattress, no pillow, in an 8-by-10-foot cell that I can assure you is disgusting.”
The news of his near-death injury came amid reports that Trump is eyeing a commutation—a move that could see the rapper being allowed to return to his $48 million Miami home within days.
TMZ claimed that a “high-ranking White House official” has alleged that Trump is “vacillating” on a commutation.
“Trump will do what he wants,” even though staff is allegedly telling him not to commute the disgraced rapper’s sentence, the source told the outlet.
Although TMZ reported that the official shared the news with the outlet, according to Us Weekly, the reports are false, as a White House official told Us Weekly that there is “no truth” to those claims.
Trump commented on Diddy’s imprisonment in August, telling Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty, “Well, he was essentially, sort of, half-innocent. I don’t know what they do that he’s still in jail or something. He was celebrating a victory, but I guess it wasn’t as good a victory.
“I was very friendly with him, got along with him great, seemed like a nice guy, didn’t know him well,” Trump said. “But when I ran for office he was very hostile. But it was hard, we’re human beings and we don’t like to have things cloud our judgment, right? But when you knew someone and you were fine and then you run for office and he made some terrible statements … so I don’t know, it makes it more difficult to do.”
This isn’t the first time Diddy has sought to avoid serving his prison sentence. Just a few weeks ago, the judge overseeing his trial denied the rapper’s request to overturn his two prostitution-related convictions.
Diddy’s lawyers had submitted a motion to toss out his convictions on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution or grant him a new trial, and arguments for and against this motion were heard by U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian in a Manhattan courtroom ahead of his sentencing.
After several days of deliberation—and just hours before the rapper was due to be sentenced—Subramian turned down the request, rejecting the defense’s argument that the prosecution did not provide enough evidence to prove that Diddy was transporting people for the purpose of paying for sex.
According to USA Today, the judge said that the evidence provided by the prosecution was “overwhelming.” He also rejected Diddy’s attorneys’ attempt to restrict the definition of “prostitution.”
Combs once lived a glamorous life in his Miami pad, which is situated on Star Island and is the same home he previously used as collateral in a failed $50 million bail plea after he was arrested on a series of heinous charges.
Diddy’s Miami home is made up of two properties, which the rapper bought decades apart.
The first, a nine-bedroom, 12-bathroom mansion, was purchased by Diddy for $14.5 million in 2003. He picked up the second home, which is next door to his original Miami mansion and has six bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms, for $35 million in 2021.
His second property was previously owned by Gloria and Emilio Estefan and includes two buildings, which sit on a 1.34-acre lot and spans 19,545 square feet. They come with nine bedrooms, a swimming pool, and a private boat deck.
It is thought that Diddy was planning to use his Miami home as his primary residence, had he secured bail.
The residence sits inside a guard-gated community on a corner lot facing the water. It offers incredible views of Biscayne Bay and the downtown Miami skyline.
The community has long been known as an exclusive spot for celebrities and the ultrawealthy, with the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Alex Rodriguez, and “Real Housewives of Miami” star Lisa Hochstein all owning homes on the island.