DETROIT, Sept 10 — A Michigan inmate was awarded a US$100 million (RM436 million) default judgment against rapper, record producer and record executive Sean “Diddy” Combs yesterday.
The award was issued yesterday by Lenawee County Circuit Court Judge Anna Marie Anzalone following a temporary restraining order granted to Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, 51, against Combs in August, reported Detroit Metro Times.
According to court records, Combs, who has become the target of multiple lawsuits and criminal investigations in 2024, allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted Cardello-Smith in 1997 at a party in Detroit.
Cardello-Smith, who crossed paths with the disgraced star while working at a Detroit-area restaurant as a hospitality industry employee, is a self-taught student of civil and criminal statutes, and is serving an unrelated sentence at the Earnest C. Brooks Correctional Facility in Muskegon Heights.
He produced prison facility information revealing Combs’s name logged into the visitation record, saying the founder of Bad Boy Records offered him US$2.3 million (RM10 million) to dismiss the lawsuit, but Cardello-Smith rejected the offer.
Anzalone’s August 7 order was established to prevent Combs from selling assets that could potentially be used to compensate Cardello-Smith for possible damages amidst a mounting number of recent plaintiffs against Combs, alleging violence or sexual assault.
In the hearing Cardello-Smith told the court of a conversation in which he says he and Combs directly discussed the lawsuit.
A default judgment is awarded to a plaintiff when the defendant in a civil suit fails to formally respond to legally filed proceedings.
Combs did not appear for the September 9 virtual hearing, which brought about the default judgement.
Cardello-Smith’s judgment could be the largest awarded to a non-attorney and a currently incarcerated inmate in history.
Combs is known as the record label founder and producer who launched the careers of legendary recording artists Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, and many others.
