The Brooklyn detention center housing Sean "Diddy" Combs amid his sex trafficking arrest and upcoming trial has held a who's who of celebrity criminals.
Combs is being held in solitude within the Special Housing Unit at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal jail that previously housed R. Kelly before and during the trial of the disgraced R&B singer, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking and racketeering in 2022.
Kelly has since been moved and, as of last year, is being housed at a North Carolina federal correctional institution, according to The Associated Press.
Other high-profile inmates at the facility include Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping him sexually abuse underage girls. Maxwell has also since been moved, and is currently being housed in an "honor dorm" at a Florida federal prison.
Other former inmates include rappers 6ix9ine and Fetty Wap, the latter of whom is now being held at an Ohio federal prison, and Martin Shkreli, the "pharma bro" convicted in 2017 of securities fraud who had his bail revoked and was sent to the Brooklyn facility after a threat made toward former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
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The jail has also made headlines for its poor conditions. In 2023, the detention center agreed to settle a $10 million lawsuit with inmates who described harsh conditions at the facility during the frigid polar vortex of 2019, according to The New York Times. Over 1,600 inmates, some of whom had yet to be tried, claimed they were left shivering in dark cells with no access to heat, medical care, food or phone calls during a weeklong power outage.
Combs will remain in federal custody after his legal team argued for his release on a $50 million bond in court on Wednesday.
Judge Andrew L. Carter ruled that Combs would remain in jail due to the risk of witness tampering and obstruction in his case, according to CNN and The New York Times. Carter said the government proved "by clear and convincing evidence" that no amount of bail could guarantee Combs wouldn't tamper with witnesses, per The Associated Press.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told Carter that the hip-hop mogul has a "long history of intimidating both accusers and witnesses to his alleged abuse," according to AP, citing text messages from women who claimed Combs threatened to leak videos of them engaging in "freak offs" (sexual performances Combs allegedly orchestrated).
Outside of the New York court, Combs' attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said Judge Carter's ruling "did not go our way" but said Combs' legal team plans on appealing the bail denial.
Contributing: KiMi Robinson and Edward Segarra