Sean “Diddy” Combs has been placed on routine suicide watch as he awaits trial in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, a source told Fox News Digital.
The source added that “this is common practice for high-profile individuals as they are admitted to a federal facility and not indicative of his mental state.”
Combs was arrested Monday in the lobby of a New York hotel, another source previously confirmed to Fox News Digital. He was charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
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In a statement to Fox News Digital on Friday, a Diddy spokesperson said, “Mr. Combs is strong, healthy, and focused on his defense. He is committed to fighting this case and has full confidence in both his legal team and the truth.”
The rapper entered a not-guilty plea hours after the indictment detailing his alleged sex crimes was unsealed. A judge on Wednesday denied a request by Combs’ lawyers to let him await trial under house arrest at his $48 million mansion on an island in Miami Beach, Florida, instead of the Brooklyn federal lockup, where he was headed.
When Fox News Digital reached out to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn for comment regarding Diddy being placed on routine suicide watch, their team replied, “For privacy, safety, and security reasons the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) does not provide information about conditions of confinement or internal security practices for any particular incarcerated individual.”
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Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center has been home to several high-profile inmates, including R. Kelly and Ghislaine Maxwell.
In 2022, Kelly was placed on suicide watch at the federal detention facility after being convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking.
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His attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, told Fox News Digital at the time that he “was placed on suicide watch for purely punitive reasons in violation of his Eighth Amendment rights.”
A few days later, Kelly was taken off of suicide watch at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after being sentenced to 30 years in prison and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine on June 29, 2022.
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Within the same month, Maxwell, who was convicted of helping ex-lover Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse girls, was placed on suicide watch just days before her sentencing hearing, despite not being suicidal, her attorneys announced in June 2022.
The attorneys, who complained about Maxwell’s detainment before, contended that their client was “not suicidal.”
“Ms. Maxwell was abruptly removed from general population and returned to solitary confinement, this time without any clothing, toothpaste, soap, legal papers, etc. She was provided a ‘suicide smock’ and is given a few sheets of toilet paper on request,” they continued in the letter. “A psychologist evaluated Ms. Maxwell and determined she is not suicidal.”
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“I met with Ms. Maxwell . . . (after a 97-minute delay following my arrival at the facility). She is not suicidal,” attorney Bobbi C. Sternheim wrote at the time.
The Bureau of Prisons opened the facility, known as MDC Brooklyn, as a jail in the early 1990s. It is used mainly for post-arrest detention for people awaiting trial in federal courts in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Other inmates are there to serve short sentences following convictions.
The facility, in an industrial area on the Brooklyn waterfront, has about 1,200 detainees.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
