Sean 'Diddy' Combs shouldn't expect special treatment at a notorious Brooklyn jail that's like 'hell on earth'

• Sean "Diddy" Combs is being housed at a notorious Brooklyn jail.
• A former warden at the jail told BI the music mogul shouldn't expect any special treatment.

Sean "Diddy" Combs' downfall was a steep one.

After a sex trafficking indictment, the super-wealthy rapper and music mogul has been forced to leave behind his grand Los Angeles and Miami mansions for the confines of a notorious Brooklyn jail.

Federal Bureau of Prisons records show that 54-year-old Combs was sent to the infamous Metropolitan Detention Center — which has housed other high-profile figures like R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, and Ghislaine Maxwell — after a judge turned down his first request to post a $50 million bond.

A former warden at the facility told Business Insider that Combs can expect to be treated like any of the other 1,200 inmates at the Brooklyn jail.

"Any time one is being detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center, it's never going to be a picnic," Cameron Lindsay, the retired warden, told BI.

The jail "is hell on earth for anyone unfortunate enough to live there," Mark Bederow, a criminal defense attorney and former Manhattan prosecutor, told BI.

"To go from living in mansions in Beverly Hills and Miami to the MDC is as epic a change in circumstances as one can have," Bederow said, adding, "All that money won't make it warmer when it's cold, colder when it's hot. It won't make the food more edible. It won't make the cockroaches stay away."

US Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky on Tuesday ordered Combs be sent to jail ahead of his criminal trial during a Manhattan federal court hearing where prosecutors argued that Combs could try to flee the country or attempt to meddle with the sex trafficking investigation.

At the hearing, Combs pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and illegal transportation for prostitution.

Meanwhile, Combs' attorneys have filed an appeal to the judge's decision and will make their case in court at a hearing later Wednesday to try to get their entrepreneur client out of lock-up.

Combs is likely being held in a small single cell unit away from the general population

Lindsay, the former warden at the jail — which has long faced scrutiny over reports of poor conditions and violence — told BI Combs should not expect any special treatment during his stay at the facility where pre-trial detainees are held.

"He'll be treated just like every other inmate," said Lindsay, who served as the warden at MDC from 2007 to 2009.

Lindsay said Combs is most likely being held away from the general population of inmates for his own safety.

"Given his status as a celebrity and a rap star, I would believe, of course, that he would be single-celled and isolated under very austere conditions," Cameron Lindsay told BI.

The space will be a concrete "stereotypical"-style jail cell with a steel sink and toilet, Lindsay said, calling it "shockingly different" from the lifestyle Combs is accustomed to.

Lindsay said Combs is better off separated from the general population of inmates because the charges against him make him a target for the other detainees.

Federal prosecutors allege in an indictment that for decades Combs "abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct."

Combs celebrity status "combined with the fact that the charges against him relate to the abuse of women, that certainly would make him an easier target — a target that some inmates definitely would attempt to exploit," said Lindsay.

Combs' attorneys declined to comment for this story, but pointed BI to the appeal they filed, which notes that "several courts in this District have recognized that the conditions at Metropolitan Detention Center are not fit for pre-trial detention."

"Just earlier this summer, an inmate was murdered. At least four inmates have died by suicide there in the past three years. Numerous Courts in this district have raised concerns with the horrific conditions of detention there," Combs' lawyers wrote.

Bederow, the former federal prosecutor, told BI that conditions at MDC are "so bad that lawyers make motions to avoid detention based upon the wretched conditions there."

"And sometimes it works," he said.