An associate of Sean Combs who was arrested on drug possession charges in March amid the federal raids on Mr. Combs’s homes has had the case against him dropped after he completed a diversion program, his lawyer announced.
Brendan Paul, 25, a former Syracuse University basketball player, was arrested in March at an airport in Opa-locka, Fla., near Miami, at the time that Homeland Security agents, along with local police officers, were raiding Mr. Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach as part of a federal investigation.
In September, Mr. Combs, also known as Diddy and Puff Daddy, was arrested in New York and charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, and he remains jailed until his trial, which is scheduled to begin in May. Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty and denied the charges against him.
After his arrest, Mr. Paul was charged with felony possession of cocaine and marijuana. In May, after a plea deal, he was entered into a six-month pretrial drug intervention program that would allow him to avoid jail time.
Records from Miami-Dade Criminal Court indicate that Mr. Paul completed the program earlier this month.
“Mr. Paul’s case was formally dismissed Tuesday, in its entirety,” Brian H. Bieber, a lawyer for Mr. Paul, said in a statement. “All charges have been dropped and the case is closed.”
Mr. Paul first came to wide public notice in February, when he was named in a sprawling lawsuit filed against Mr. Combs by Rodney Jones Jr., a producer known as Lil Rod who had worked on Mr. Combs’s most recent album. In that suit, which accused Mr. Combs of making unwanted sexual contact with Mr. Jones, and of forcing him to hire prostitutes and participate in sex acts with them, Mr. Jones called Mr. Paul a “mule” who transported drugs and guns for Mr. Combs.
Mr. Paul’s lawyer, Mr. Bieber, did not respond to a request for comment about the accusations against him in Mr. Jones’s suit.
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