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Writer's pictureKris Avalon

Alleged Gun Mule JLo Roped Into Diddy's Legal Drama Amid Sex Trafficking Probe


The FBI are set to widen their investigation into P Diddy by potentially reopening a case involving the rapper and Jennifer Lopez in a shooting at a New York nightclub.



Story Time!!!


Almost 25 years ago, just after 2:30 a.m. on a cold winter night, three NYPD detectives were called to the Midtown North precinct.


Rap impresario Sean Combs, then known as Puffy, his girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, his bodyguard, Anthony “Wolf” Jones, and rapper Jamal “Shyne” Barrow had been arrested following a shooting inside a Times Square club that wounded three bystanders.


The cops found Lopez, then 30, cuffed in “the cage.” Combs was also in the stationhouse on West 54th Street, his plans for a spectacular celebration of the new millennium a few days later temporarily on hold.



Now the events of that night and the sensational trial that followed it in early 2001 are back in the spotlight.


Two law enforcement sources tell The Post that the infamous shooting and the trial could possibly be reinvestigated as part of a sweeping federal probe into Combs, now 54 and called Diddy — whose past includes more than one mysterious shooting.


On Monday, Homeland Security agents swarmed Combs’ homes in Los Angeles and Miami in raids that law enforcement sources told The Post were prompted by sex-trafficking allegations.


“They got eyes on him in Miami and the feds are talking to witness after witness,” New York criminal defense attorney Michael Discioarro, who is familiar with the case, told The Post.


“They’re corroborating everything they can. But everything past and present is on the table with Mr. Diddy right now.”


Ex-NYPD Detective Derrick Parker, who was part of the “rap intelligence” squad, handled P. Diddy’s case after a 1999 shooting at a Times Square nightclub.


The federal agents stormed into Diddy’s homes one month after Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones filed an explosive lawsuit claiming the music mogul repeatedly sexually assaulted him from September 2022 to November 2023 while Jones was a producer and videographer for the billionaire.


Jones compared Combs to Jeffrey Epstein and accused the mogul of groping his genitals, grooming him into having sex and forcing him to procure sex workers, strippers and drugs.


His suit came less than three months after Diddy settled an explosive lawsuit alleging sexual violence filed by his former girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie, alleged that Diddy ran an Epstein-like operation involving sexual assault, human trafficking, and blackmail with hidden cameras that captured high-profile names in entertainment, politics and sports in homosexual acts and other compromising positions.



Jones alleged in his suit that Diddy was violent, threatened “to eat” his face, brandished guns — and most pointedly, was often “bragging about bribing witnesses, and jurors in the criminal case concerning the 1999 NYC nightclub shooting with Shyne.”


The shooting stemmed from an argument between Diddy and a Brooklyn thug named Matthew Allen who was nicknamed “Scar.”


But Diddy, his bodyguard Anthony Jones and “Shyne” Barrow endured a seven-week trial in February and March 2001 — which ended with Diddy and Jones walking free and Barrow, then 21, being convicted on assault and gun possession and sentenced to 10 years in prison.



Mystery still surrounds the Club New York shooting, especially for former NYPD Detective Derrick Parker, who left the so-called “Hip Hop Cop” squad at the NYPD and is now a private investigator.


Diddy has been dogged for years by rumors that he made Shyne — now known as Moses Michael Levi Barrow and who is the opposition leader of the House of Representatives in Belize — take the fall for the incident.


“The story was that Puff was flossing, which is what they call someone on the streets who’s throwing money around and acting like a big shot,” Parker said.


“Scar felt disrespected because he felt he was as important as Puff and words were exchanged and then bullets started flying.”



Shots were fired and Lopez and Diddy fled the club in a Lincoln Navigator. Diddy’s driver Wardel Fenderson later said he blew past several red lights as they careened down 43rd Street and onto Eighth Avenue, weaving past two police cars.


“Shyne busted off! Shyne busted off in the air!” Fenderson quoted Lopez as saying — before cops pulled them over.


Parker told The Post how in the precinct, “Her mother was yelling at J.Lo in Spanish and she was really mad at Jennifer. I heard her say, ‘I told you not to get involved with (him).'”


Lopez was released from custody without being charged after 14 hours in jail.


Her spokeswoman declined to comment to The Post, but sources in her camp made it clear that she was never charged in 1999.


Natania Reuben, who was one of the three victims in the club shooting, has long insisted that Combs shot her in the face.


“I literally watched them pull out the guns, I had a clear point of view. I mean, for God’s sake, I got shot in my nose,” Reuben said during an appearance on NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” Thursday.


Jones, in his lawsuit, claims Diddy openly bragged about committing the shooting and bribing witnesses and jurors to secure his acquittal.


“Mr. Combs shared that he was responsible for the shooting in the nightclub in New York,” Jones alleged.


He also alleges that Diddy bragged about using Lopez to smuggle the gun into the club.

“He shared that artist, and Mr. Combs’ girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Lopez, aka, J.Lo carried the gun into the club for him and passed him the gun after he got into an altercation with another individual,” Jones alleges.


“I watched everything occur and have described it, vehemently, to all parties involved. I have nine bullet fragments remaining in my face.”



Diddy, through attorneys, has denied Jones’ allegations. His attorney called the federal raids “a witch hunt” and slammed the “military-level force” used.


Diddy was backed this week by Glen Beck, who was working security at the club that night, and is now a martial arts expert who works with Deadly Art of Survival magazine.


Beck testified at the 2001 trial but told The Post that it appeared the prosecution was hell-bent on nailing Diddy and therefore did not ask him about Barrow, aka “Shyne.”


He called Jones’ claims “bulls–t” and said, “We knew Scar. We knew Shyne. He was a wild kid from Brooklyn.”


Beck said that just as the fight was brewing between Diddy and Scar, Shyne ran out of the club and returned a few minutes later without being searched by security.


“That’s when the shooting began,” he said. “Then right after we heard shots ring out, Shyne ran out the side door of the club that was attached to a hotel.


“He came flying out the doors and was immediately arrested by two cops who were outside and had heard the shots inside.”


Barrow admitted at trial that he pulled out a gun and fired during the fracas and, so far, has not accused Diddy of making him take the fall for him.


The Post was unable to reach Barrow in his native Belize.


Beck also disputed that Lopez could have been used as a gun mule and said, “I remember how well she was dressed that night and she’s very slim, she’s not going to be hiding a gun in that outfit.”


But the 1999 shooting is not the only one likely to be re-examined by federal investigators.


Jones also alleged that Diddy lied about his and his son Justin Combs’ role in a 2022 shooting at the Chalice recording studio in Los Angeles in which a friend of Justin known only as “G” was hit twice.



Jones claims that he was present at the Chalice shooting, which he said occurred at a recording “camp” in the studio where Diddy, Justin and “G” got into a “heated conversation,” then moved into a restroom, where shots rang out .


Photos in Jones’ lawsuit show what purportedly was the bloody aftermath of the shooting in the bathroom. Jones said he stepped in to help “G,” who was bleeding out, and took him outside to an ambulance.


“Mr. Combs gave strict instructions to inform the police that he had nothing to do with the shooting,” Jones alleged.


“He also forced Mr. Jones to lie to the police by telling them that G was shot standing outside the studio by a drive-by assailant.”


The LAPD did not return numerous calls from The Post, but a police spokesman told NBC News that three people were arrested two months later and accused of a series of robberies throughout LA, including the shooting of “G.”


Police said “G” had told them he was shot in a struggle with attempted robbers.


Jones also alleged that Diddy’s head of security, Faheem Muhammad, who was once head of security for Michael Jackson, is a powerful fixer with connections in the LAPD who, Jones claimed, “had the power to make people and problems disappear.”


Management at Chalice, where Diddy has recorded multiple times, declined comment Friday.

Diddy, however, is not without other defenders.



LA rapper Glasses Malone, a former Crip who grew up in South-Central LA and who has been around Diddy on multiple occasions, told The Post, “I found Jones’ lawsuit pretty disingenuous.


This guy calls himself a Christian but yet he let himself be forced into getting strippers and cocaine for Puff?”


Malone, who also uses the same network of LA recording studios like Chalice and others, said the only thing that concerned him in the Jones lawsuit was the shooting involving “G.”


“If true, that’s the only thing in the lawsuit that shows criminal intent to me,” Malone said.


“And we’re all talking about this but nobody knows who this ‘G’ guy is or where he is. That’s the mystery to me.”


But Jason Whitlock, author and host of the “Fearless” podcast, opined to The Post, “There’s an avalanche of truth coming — as well as a lot of distortions and opportunists coming.


“Diddy could just get buried by that avalanche.”

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