By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sean “Diddy” Combs has been accused of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in 2005, according to a new lawsuit that joins more than two dozen others accusing the music mogul of sexual misconduct.

The civil suit was one of two filed Monday in New York state court in Manhattan by Tony Buzbee, an attorney who says he represents more than 150 victims of Combs’ abuse and has filed at least 17 lawsuits.

In Monday’s second trial, another male accuser said he was a 17-year-old auditioning for the reality TV show “Making the Band” when Combs and a bodyguard sexually assaulted him in 2008.

“The attorney behind this lawsuit is more interested in media attention than the truth,” Combs’ attorneys said in a statement similar to those issued after Buzbee’s previous lawsuits. “In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone – male or female, adult or minor.”

Combs, 54, also pleaded not guilty to criminal sex trafficking charges in federal court in Manhattan, where he faces felony charges of conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

Federal prosecutors have accused the Bad Boy record label founder of forcing men, women and children to have sex without their consent, bribing and intimidating them into silence, and hiring his staff to cover up the crimes.

Combs was held for six weeks in a Brooklyn jail after being denied bail twice and is appealing his detention.

In the complaint involving the 10-year-old, the California plaintiff, known as John Doe, said he was an aspiring actor and rapper when a consultant his parents hired arranged an “audition” with Combs at a hotel in New York.

According to the complaint, after Doe told Combs he would “do anything” to become a star, Combs gave him a drug-laced soda, pushed him down and forced him to perform oral sex.

Doe said he passed out and when he woke up it was painful and he unzipped his pants. He said he cried and asked to see his parents, prompting Combs to say he would hurt them “badly” if Doe revealed what happened, the complaint said.

In the second complaint, another California plaintiff named John Doe said Combs forced him to perform oral sex on himself and the bodyguard, with Combs framing the latter as a “test” of how much Doe wanted to succeed in the music business.

Doe failed the audition after Combs deemed him “untrustworthy because of his reservations about performing oral sex with a bodyguard,” the complaint says.

Combs’ criminal trial is scheduled for May 5, 2025.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)