Puffy: It's A Bad Rap
Sean "Puffy" Combs' battle against gun possession charges added to a long list of past legal troubles, reports VH1's Rebecca Rankin for CBS News.
"I am an innocent man, and I want everyone to know. I'm not going to take this lying down," Combs said before a judge placed a gag order on lawyers and defendants in the case, which ended with a not guilty verdict.
Combs was on the legal hot seat for his alleged involvement in a New York City nightclub shooting in December '99. He was charged with two counts of illegal possession of a weapon, as well as bribery charges. Combs faced up to 15 years in prison.
As the trial neared, the 31-year-old Combs grew anxious about his reputation, his family, his future.
Of all the questions that followed his arrest, the toughest ones were posed by a pair of pint-sized inquisitors: his two oldest sons.
"My kids, watching the news and seeing me in handcuffs — it's just the worst thing," the multimillionaire music impresario reflected. "And having to answer the questions for them — that's been the hardest thing."
But this isn't Combs' first run-in with the law. His legal woes began early in his career when he was an unknown rap promoter.
In 1991 Combs was one of the promoters involved in the City College celebrity basketball game stampede in New York City, where nine people were killed and 29 injured when the crowd stormed the locked doors.
"First of all I would like to let the families of the victims know how deeply hurt we all are that this tragedy occurred", Combs said at the time of the incident.
The judge ruled that both he and the State of New York shared responsibility.
Late in 1995 he threatened a newspaper photographer with a gun and was arrested and charged with criminal possession of a weapon. He pleaded guilty to criminal mischief and paid a $1,000 fine.
"I had pleaded to a violation or something like that. I just wanted it to be over with," said Combs.
Then, in April of '99, he and two accomplices beat up rap mogul Steve Stout with a chair, telephone and champagne bottle because Stout refused to remove a scene from rap artist Nas's video that featured Combs nailed to a cross.
"The way I handled myself in the office was completely wrong, you know. And, I've since apologized to Steve about that," said Combs.
The two settled the dispute, Combs pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to a one-day course in anger management.
A deal reportedly was offered in the nightclub shooting as well: a guilty plea to a misdemeanor gun charge in return for a short stint in jail. But Combs preferred to have a jury decide what happened in the early morning of Dec. 27, 1999.
Combs heads an empire that includes his label, Bad Boy Records; a clothing line, Sean John; restaurants in New York and Atlanta; and a variety of production, publishing and managemnt operations.
In an interview with the New York Daily News, Natania Reuben, a star witness in the latest case, said she lives in fear and is scared for her life.
Reuben was one of three injured in the 1999 nightclub shooting and alleged that Combs "had a gun."