Sean “Diddy” Combs is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after being charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Diddy, 54, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, was ordered held without bail on Tuesday, September 17. As the rapper awaits trial, Ashley Cordero, whose late husband, Edwin Cordero, was killed in July while detained at the same facility where Diddy is being held, is speaking out about the poor, dangerous conditions of the detention center — and warns the music mogul to be careful.
“The prison is disgusting. They have rats running through there and everything,” Ashley exclusively tells Us Weekly. “It’s disgusting inside. My husband used to sit there and say it was nasty that rats were everywhere. … No human being should be living like that at all. No human being should live that way. You’re not an animal, you’re still a human.”
Ashley says that she still doesn’t know much about what led to her husband’s shocking death, which took place after he was fatally injured in a fight at the detention center.
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“They aren’t giving me much information. It’s under investigation,” she says. “All they told me was it was a brawl [and] that he was stabbed in [the] upper part of his chest.”
Given her experience with how violent the Metropolitan Detention Center can be, Ashley’s advice for Diddy is to “keep to himself” and not “trust anybody.”
“He should try to transfer to a different prison. My husband died in there. That prison is no good,” Ashley warns. “Honestly, him getting denied bail, you got [to] suck it up and be in prison, but try to transfer. That prison is obviously not safe. If so many are complaining, that says something.”
Ashley and Edwin shared two young children.
“When he went in, my baby was 5 months old. My daughter is two years old and sits here without her father,” Ashley tells Us. “My daughter knows him, she asks about him. My baby will never know her dad. He has another child, my stepson, and it’s affecting him so much.”
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Andrew Dalack, a lawyer who previously represented Edwin , told the New York Times in July that his death was “senseless and completely preventable.” He called Edwin “another victim of M.D.C. Brooklyn, an overcrowded, understaffed and neglected federal jail that is hell on earth.”
Last month, federal court Judge Gary Brown threatened to vacate the sentence of a man convicted of a tax scam if he were sent to M.D.C. due to “dangerous, barbaric conditions” at the jail (per the Brooklyn Daily Eagle). He cited violent incidents, including the one that led to Edwin’s death.
“These incidents demonstrate a woeful lack of supervision, a breakdown of order and an environment of lawlessness that constitute unacceptable, reprehensible and deadly mismanagement,” Brown wrote in court documents.
Diddy’s Monday, September 16, arrest came amid his multiple sexual assault lawsuits and a federal investigation.
“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Diddy’s attorney Marc Agnifilo told Us in a statement. “He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal. To his credit, Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”
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After Diddy’s indictment, a 14-page document was unsealed which accused the music mogul of engaging in “a persistent and pervasive pattern of abuse toward women and other individuals.”
Among the document’s shocking details were claims that Diddy hosted “Freak Offs,” which were “elaborate and produced sex performances” allegedly orchestrated using “force, threats of force and coercion to cause victims to engage in extended sex acts with male commercial sex workers.” Diddy and the alleged victims “received IV fluids to recover from the physical exertion and drug use” after the acts, the documents claim.
The indictment document also alleges that evidence of the “Freak Offs” was discovered in Diddy’s Miami and Beverly Hills residences when the homes were raided in March.
“Law enforcement seized various ‘Freak Off’ supplies, including narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant,” the docs claim.
With reporting by Andrea Simpson