Puff Daddy Gives Testimony Says Stampede Wasn’t His Fault [1998-03-24]
Rap music king Sean (Puff Daddy) Combs says he’s not to blame for the 1991 stampede at City College in which nine people were killed and dozens injured at a celebrity basketball game he organized.
Combs took the witness stand yesterday at a multi-million-dollar negligence trial in the state Court of Claims to publicly answer questions about his role in the incident for the first time
Puffy Recalls Deadly Benefit – Suit over tragedy at City College [1998-03-24]
Diddy accused of lying about deadly NYC stampede killing 9 teenagers at charity event
While Sean “P. Diddy” Combs remains in jail awaiting trial on serious charges, his past controversies are resurfacing amid ongoing legal battles. Although the fallout from Cassie Ventura’s lawsuit is his most significant scandal to date, his first major controversy occurred over 30 years ago.
PUFFY SETTLES STAMPEDE SUIT ; PAYOFF IS LAST CHAPTER OF ‘91 TRAGEDY
nypost.com
Sean “Puffy” Combs agreed to pay a secret settlement yesterday to a Bronx secretary caught in a stampede at a City College charity basketball game the rap mogul sponsored in 1991.
Nine killed in a stampede outside a hip-hop celebrity basketball game
history.com
”It doesn’t take an Einstein to know that young people attending a rap concert…who have paid as much as $20 a ticket, would not be very happy and easy to control if they were unable to gain admission to the event because it was oversold.” Those were the words of Judge Louis C. Benza of the New York State Court of Claims in sorting out the question of civil liability for one of the worst music-related tragedies in recent American history. Judge Benza’s 73-page decision, issued seven years after nine young people died in a crowd stampede on December 28, 1991, placed 50 percent of the blame for those deaths on the venue’s owner, the City University of New York, and 50 percent on the event’s promoters, rapper Dwight “Heavy D” Myers and the then largely unknown hip-hop impresario Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs.
‘THEY JUST KEPT PUSHING … ‘
washingtonpost.com
NEW YORK, DEC. 29 — There were too few security guards and police at a star-studded charity event Saturday night to contain a frustrated, locked-out crowd, according to officials and witnesses. The throng swelled to hurricane force, burst through glass doors, swept down a staircase and collapsed in a heap of broken and smothered bodies.
STAMPEDE AT CITY COLLEGE; 8 Lives That Came Together, Then Were Lost in a Crush
Dirk Swain had cheated death once this year, surviving a gunshot wound to the head when a fraternity party in Virginia turned violent last September.
Before he was Diddy: Covering Sean Combs’s first scandal
Now held on a variety of criminal charges, the hip-hop star first made news when he organized a charity basketball game that ended in a deadly stampede. The tabloids raced to cover it.
Diddy, City College and the infamous night in 1991 when 9 people died
NEW YORK – Mega-mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has now spent more than a month inside a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges that may tank the former billionaire hitmaker’s career.
Looking Back at the 1991 Diddy-Promoted Event Where 9 People Died: Inside the City College Stampede
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been in the news recently because of his September 2024 arrest, but his first brush with scandal happened more than 30 years ago.
CCNY stampede victims to be remembered 33 years later on Saturday in Harlem
NEW YORK — Saturday marks 33 years since nine people died during a stampede at a celebrity basketball game at City College of New York.
The winter break calm across the Harlem campus on Thursday seemed very different than the scene that night in 1991, before the cheers that pierced the silence of the night turned into screams.
Childs v. City University of New York “Stampede at City College” [1999-01-21] Judge Luis
Judge Luis Benza [New York Law Journal]
It is defendant’s contention that it is immune from liability for injuries sustained by claimants while attending an ESG-sponsored function at one of its facilities. More specifically, defendant states that its participation in the “celebrity basketball game” was governmental in nature, and since claimants failed to establish that a special duty existed between them and defendant, their cause of action should be dismissed.
VH1 Best Of ’99: Puff Daddy Heavy D Found Liable For Deadly Stampede [1999-01-12]
legalrightsadvice
Hip-hop producer Sean “Puffy” Combs and rapper Heavy D are equally responsible, along with the City University of New York, for a stampede that killed nine people and injured 29 at a charity basketball game in 1991, a judge has ruled.
