Sean Combs, the famed rapper charged and held for racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and the sexual abuse of women, is being held in the same jail unit as disgraced crypto giant Sam Bankman Fried whose FTX empire was based in the Bahamas.
Both men are living in a Brooklyn unit at the Metropolitan Detention Center, sleeping in a dormitory-style room with a group of other defendants assigned to the same section, a person familiar with the living arrangements told NBC.
Combs has pleaded not guilty, but a federal judge on Sept. 17 denied bail and ordered that he be held until his trial, concerned that he would tamper with witnesses.
The unit where Combs and Bankman-Fried live is described as a barracks-style area that houses 18 to 20 inmates. This group –from high-profile defendants to people who cooperate with investigators–require special protection.
Bankman-Fried, 32, was extradited from the Bahamas to New York and was sentenced for stealing $8 billion in a financial scheme, described as one of the largest financial frauds in history. He is appealing his sentence.
A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons said the agency “does not provide information about conditions of confinement, including housing assignments or internal security practices for any particular incarcerated individual.”
From the onset, Combs’s lawyers argued that the conditions at M.D.C. were too “horrific” for a defendant awaiting trial.
Metropolitan Detention Center has a history of problems and is described as “an overcrowded, understaffed and neglected federal jail that is hell on earth” with almost 1,200 inmates.
