Diddy's Attorney Says He Came to N.Y. to Cooperate with Authorities. Feds Believe They Found Drugs During Arrest

Sean Combs had been in New York for 11 days before federal authorities arrested him on sex crime and racketeering charges at a Manhattan hotel at 8:25 p.m. Monday, Sept. 16.

Inside his hotel room, law enforcement allegedly found bags of pink powder, which prosecutors said at Combs' Tuesday, Sept. 17, arraignment “appears to be narcotics.” 

Authorities are having the powder tested, Assistant United States Attorney Emily A. Johnson told a federal judge during the music mogul’s arraignment. Johnson alleged that previous seizures from Combs suggest that the powder could be ecstasy. 

In a 14-page indictment unsealed Tuesday, prosecutors claim that for years the singer known as Diddy coerced women to participate in "freak offs" defined as drug-induced “elaborate and produced sex performances” with male sex workers. Prosecutors say he threatened the women’s entertainment careers if they refused him and used secret recordings of the performances as “collateral.”

The potential drug allegations – which came out during a hearing in which Combs was denied bail and when, Johnson said, the singer was “waiting, potentially for his arrest,” and would be expected to be at his “very, very best behavior,” – were used by prosecutors to claim that the singer would continue breaking the law unless he was detained.

Combs – seated between his lawyers and dressed in a long sleeve black shirt and striped gray sweatpants – took a sip of water from a Fuji bottle as Johnson detailed the Monday night seizure.

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Combs’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, did not address the allegations of potential hotel room drugs in court Tuesday and he did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

Agnifilo, who told the judge Tuesday that the singer is in “treatment and therapy,” requested that Combs be released on a $50 million bond and told the court Tuesday that the singer had paid off the mortgage of his $48 million residence in a “terrible business decision,” so that he could provide the money.

But Johnson alleged that the rapper had an “ongoing ability” to obstruct justice, influencing and gaslighting witnesses who she claimed were “in his pocket and at his disposal” if he remained out from behind bars.

Johnson claimed that over a three-day period the week before his arrest, Combs had made 128 phone contacts – including 58 calls and texts – to singer Kalenna Harper, arguing that the rapper successfully urged her to refute sexual abuse claims in a lawsuit filed by singer Dawn Richard on Sept. 10.

Three days later, Harper posted to Instagram Stories, writing that Richard’s “personal perspective” “should not be interpreted as a universal truth applicable to everyone involved.”

Combs will return to federal court Wednesday, Sept. 18, at 3:30 p.m. to appeal the decision to deny his bail. 

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.