Sean Combs Arrested in Manhattan After Grand Jury Indictment

Sean Combs, the music mogul whose career has been upended by sexual assault lawsuits and a federal investigation, was arrested in Manhattan on Monday evening, after a grand jury indicted him, according to a person familiar with the indictment who was not authorized to speak publicly.The charges in the indictment were not immediately clear.Mr.Combs, 54, who is also known as Diddy and Puff Daddy, was a key figure in the global rise of hip-hop as a commercial force in the 1990s and 2000s, helping to make stars of rappers and R&B singers like the Notorious B.I.G.

and Mary J.Blige.

But he has been under intense public scrutiny since a former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit last November accusing him of years of sexual and physical abuse.Mr.Combs settled the suit with Ms.

Ventura — an R&B singer known as Cassie, who had been signed to Mr.Combs’s record label — in one day, and denied any wrongdoing.

But legal pressure mounted over the next nine months, with the filing of five lawsuits by women alleging sexual assault and three other sexual misconduct suits, all of which Mr.Combs’s lawyers are fighting in court.In March, federal agents raided Mr.

Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach, Fla., stopping him at a Miami-area airport and confiscating his electronic devices.The authorities made no announcements at the time, but a federal official said the inquiry was at least in part a human trafficking investigation.

Federal prosecutors in New York had by that time interviewed a number of witnesses about sexual misconduct allegations against Mr.Combs, according to a person familiar with the interviews.Mr.

Combs has vehemently denied the accusations in the civil suits, calling them “sickening allegations” from people looking for “a quick payday.” His lawyers have sharply criticized how the raids — which involved agents from Homeland Security Investigations brandishing guns — were carried out, calling them a “gross overuse ...