Long before his sex trafficking trial, Sean ‘Diddy' Combs fended off allegations surrounding infamous charity event in which 9 people died

CNN

2 days ago

On the day Sean 'Diddy' Combs was convicted on charges of transportation to engage in prostitution, Jason Swain's mind raced back more than three decades to the Manhattan gymnasium where his brother and eight other young people were crushed to death.
He recalled being shown a Polaroid of his deceased 20-year-old brother Dirk – eyes open – that night in late December 1991 at the stairwell entrance to the City College of New York gymnasium. Thousands had gathered at the Harlem campus for an oversold charity basketball game organized by an up-and-coming music producer then known as Puff Daddy.
'My mother was there with some of the other mothers. They all were looking at Polaroid pictures of their dead kids,' Swain told CNN in a recent interview. 'And my dad was angry with the police because they wouldn't let us see Dirk. But, you know, it was a crime scene.'
In fact, no criminal charges were filed in connection with the tragedy, which stunned the city and generated national headlines. The victims ranged in age from 15 to 28, according to media reports.
It was the first of several instances along the three-time Grammy winner's meteoric ascent that Combs' career kept prospering despite civil or criminal allegations, including his 2001 acquittal on four counts of gun possession and one count of bribery following a Manhattan nightclub shooting two years earlier.
For years, the families of Dirk Swain and other victims sought civil damages in drawn-out wrongful death suits. Combs paid about $750,000 of a total $3.8 million to settle claims by relatives of the victims in 1998, according to the New York State Attorney General's office, which represented City College, The New York Times reported.
A state court judge had ruled Combs and the rap artist and copromoter of the event Dwight 'Heavy D' Myers – who died in 2011 – bore 50% of the culpability for the deaths and injuries, according to court documents. The balance of the blame fell on the college, according to the judge. Combs' attorney in the suits declined comment this week.
Jason Swain and a survivor, Charrisse Miles, find little solace in Combs' conviction this week on two charges of transportation to engage in prostitution. They said he has never accepted full responsibility for the deaths at City College.
Combs avoided the worst possible scenario when he was cleared of more serious racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking counts, punishable by up to life in prison, at his federal criminal trial. Instead, Combs faces a maximum sentence of 20 years – though he could serve less prison time.
'I don't know how to express it any other way. I'm spiritual, like my mother, and for anything that was done wrong over the years, he's gonna get his,' said Swain, a filmmaker. 'I believe in karma.'
CNN reached out to members of Combs' current legal team for comment on this story. A media representative for Combs referred CNN to their client's 1998 statement to the media. When Combs testified as a witness in one of the lawsuits related to the deadly stampede, he spoke to reporters outside the courtroom.
'City College is something I deal with every day of my life,' Combs was quoted as saying by The New York Times. 'But the things that I deal with can in no way measure up to the pain that the families deal with. I just pray for the families and pray for the children who lost their lives every day.'
On Wednesday, after an eight-week trial, Combs sat with his hands clasped in his lap when the verdict was read. When the not guilty verdict was announced on the racketeering conspiracy charge, he put his head in his hand. Then he did a subtle fist pump when he was declared not guilty on the sex trafficking counts.
Later, Combs dropped to his knees at his chair and bowed his head as if praying. When he stood up, he faced members of his family and supporters in the gallery and started a round of applause. They responded with applause and cheers as Combs' attorneys exchanged hugs.
Prosecutors had accused Combs of leading a criminal enterprise made up of some of his closest employees, alleging they used threats, violence, forced labor, bribery and other crimes to force ex-girlfriends Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura and 'Jane,' who testified under a pseudonym, to engage in drug-fueled sex acts called 'Freak Offs' or 'hotel nights' with male escorts.
Combs pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of transportation for prostitution. His lawyers argued the sex acts were consensual and merely preferences, while trying to undermine the hip-hop mogul's accusers by contending they were trying to gain a monetary benefit from Combs.
Combs was denied bail on Wednesday. The date of his sentencing has not been firmly set. There will be a hearing Tuesday to address the scheduling of Combs' sentencing.
In the end, legal experts said the prosecution may have overcharged Combs. Jurors never heard any direct testimony from many of the people who prosecutors claimed participated in the alleged enterprise.
After the judge left the bench Wednesday, Combs told family members: 'We're going to make it through this.'
'I'll see you when I get out,' he added before blowing kisses to family and friends in the courtroom.
Charrisse Miles, who was 21 when she survived the deadly 1991 stampede in Harlem, said she followed coverage of Combs' latest trial for a couple of days and then couldn't 'stomach' any more.
'When you think about the City College incident, that was traumatizing for a lot of us back then. But when we think about the people he's traumatized since then, it's astronomical,' Miles, 54, an IT project manager who now lives in Georgia, told CNN, referring to Combs.
The nightmarish moments she endured more than three decades ago are still vivid: A mob of pushing, shoving young people; the faces of victims trapped in a small stairwell, screaming, passing out and being crushed. People were falling; others running. It was her first time out alone for an event like the '1st Annual Heavy D & Puff Daddy Celebrity Charity Basketball Game.' Miles recalled 'feeling a little grown up.'
The night featured some of the biggest names in music: Boyz II Men, Run DMC, Big Daddy Kane and Jodeci. It was billed as an AIDS education benefit after basketball legend Magic Johnson had recently revealed he was HIV-positive.
Miles recalled standing in the crowded gym as speakers blared music and celebrities ran plays up and down the court. 'I probably was (in the gym) not even 10 minutes before the stampede actually started,' she told CNN. 'I was in the crowd when the first victim was raised above us and carried out.'
She remembered a roar as the crowd stampeded through the doors. She said she saw Combs and some associates running past her and 'never looking back.'
'I know it was so many years ago but it was one of those incidences where you kind of don't forget,' Miles said. 'He just kind of ran past, like, 'We have to get out of here.''
Miles said Combs – who she believes was sufficiently well-known and respected by young people even at the time – could have used his celebrity status to try to calm the crowd and 'brought a sense of peace.'
'I feel like from City College up until today, if this was a person of remorse, we should have seen it by now,' she said. 'I just feel like he's trying to get to a position where he can continue.'
She referred to his behavior after the recent trial verdict, the subtle fist pump and the applause and cheers in the courtroom.
'I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist but it just screams narcissistic behavior,' Miles said. 'He seems to be saying, 'I'm OK. I'm good. I'll be free again.' There's nothing about, 'I'll do better,' or the victims or the harm he's brought to people. It just appears to be all about him.'
A 1992 report requested by former New York City Mayor David Dinkins cited a failure of responsibility of all the parties involved in the event in the 1991 tragedy. It singled out Combs for leaving the event planning in the hands of inexperienced associates and accused him of misleading attendees about the charitable nature of the game. The gym's capacity was 2,730 – but accounts of the number of people who sought to gain admission were between 3,000 and 4,000, the report said.
The review of the events that day, the report said, 'leads to the inescapable conclusion that almost all of the individuals involved in the event demonstrated a lack of responsibility.'
In his ruling in one of the lawsuits, Court of Claims Judge Louis Benza cited the testimony of a veteran New York City police officer who said the doors to the gym were blocked by a table. The officer said when he pushed aside the table that was blocking the door and fell 'through the door, into the gym,' he saw 'Combs standing there with two women, and all three had money in their hands.'
Benza wrote the officer's description of events 'places a strain on the credibility of Combs' testimony that he was caught up in the melee and attempted to help the people who were trapped in the stairwell.'
'It does not take an Einstein to know that young people attending a rap concert camouflaged as a 'celebrity basketball game,' who have paid as much as $20 a ticket, would not be very happy and easy to control if they were unable to gain admission to the event because it was oversold,' the judge wrote.
'By closing the only open door giving access to the gym, Combs' forces, who were fully aware of the crowd uncontrollably pouring down the stairwell, created something akin to a 'dike,' forcing the people together like 'sardines' squashing out life's breath from young bodies,' Benza added.
The cause of death for each victim was 'asphyxia due to compression of the chest,' the city's chief medical examiner said, according to the report commissioned by the former mayor. 'No broken bones were found in any of the deceased.'
Jason Swain said even after nearly 34 years, he has never stopped thinking or talking about the tragedy at City College and the nine people who lost their lives. He'll never forget his older brother Dirk, lying on the gym floor with a sheet draped over his body. The ticket to the game was in his pocket.
'Dirk wanted to be an architect. And that was based off, as funny as it may sound, 'The Brady Bunch,' the father of 'The Brady Bunch,'' he recalled. 'Dirk was a graffiti artist … Dirk, with my dad, as a kid, used to trace the comics in the newspaper. And he became an artist.'
Dirk was a junior at Hampton University near Virginia Beach when he died. Swain said Dirk had been shot in Virginia three months before the City College event and survived his head injuries.
'His first day out was at City College, at this event. So we got him back, and then he died. So I lost my mind. I only had one sibling and he was super, like a father to me.'
On his Grammy award-winning 'No Way Out' album nearly six years after the stampede, Combs briefly mentioned the City College victims in a song titled 'Pain.'
'To the City College deceased, may you rest in peace
To the families, I never meant to cause no pain
I know the truth, but if you want, then I shoulder the blame.'
But Swain and Miles said Combs has always evaded responsibility for the deaths.
'The way I look at it, the victims were tucked under a rug and left voiceless,' Swain said. 'No one talked about them.'
CNN's Dakin Andone, Lauren del Valle, Nicki Brown, Way Mullery, Holly Yan, Rebekah Riess, Karina Tsui, Kara Scannell and Elizabeth Wagmeister contributed to this report.