A Michigan inmate known for his long history of challenging the judicial system with civil lawsuits has been awarded a $100 million default judgment against embattled entertainment mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
The award was issued Monday by Lenawee County Circuit Court Judge Anna Marie Anzalone following a temporary restraining order granted to Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, 51, against Combs in August. Combs, who has become the target of multiple lawsuits and criminal investigations in 2024, drugged and sexually assaulted Cardello-Smith in 1997 at a party in Detroit, according to court records.
Cardello-Smith, who crossed paths with Combs while Cardello-Smith worked as a Detroit-area restaurant and hospitality industry employee, is a self-taught student of civil and criminal statutes, and is serving an unrelated sentence at the Earnest C. Brooks Correctional Facility in Muskegon Heights.
Cardello-Smith goes “way back” in history with Combs, he recently told Metro Times.
Cardello-Smith produced prison facility information revealing Combs’s name logged into the visitation record, and says the founder of Bad Boy Records offered him $2.3 million dollars to dismiss the lawsuit, but Cardello-Smith rejected the offer. Anzalone’s Aug. 7 order was established to prevent Combs from selling assets that could potentially be used to compensate Cardello-Smith for possible damages. He is one of a mounting number of recent plaintiffs against Combs, alleging violence or sexual assault.
In the August hearing Cardello-Smith told the court of a conversation in which he says he and Combs directly discussed the lawsuit.
“You know how we get down” was Combs’s alleged response to Cardello-Smith’s threat to proceed with the action instead of accepting an out-of-court settlement, Cardello-Smith told Anzalone.
Cardello-Smith told the judge he said, “I disagree with how you get down.”
The virtual hearing and excerpts of it, in which Anzelone reads the complaint identifying Combs “also known as ‘Sean P. Diddy, also known as Diddy’” and “Diddy Run the City,” among other nicknames, has generated hundreds of thousands of social media views. Some in the comments sections of the videos express doubt about Cardello-Smith’s claim. A social media user known as @jenniferwyllie4033 notes the widely circulated hotel hallway footage in which Combs is shown kicking and dragging his then-girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura.
“Just remember… they made Cassie look crazy until she produced receipts,” @jenniferwyllie4033 posts.
Combs issued a social media apology after the footage of the assault was revealed this summer.
A default judgment is awarded to a plaintiff when the defendant in a civil suit fails to formally respond to legally filed proceedings. Combs did not appear for the Sept. 9 virtual hearing, which caused the default.
Cardello-Smith’s judgment could be the largest awarded to a non-attorney and a currently incarcerated inmate in history.
Combs is known as the record label founder and producer who launched the careers of legendary recording artists Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, and others.
