What is it like awaiting one of the most high-profile sex trafficking trials of the past decade, in the one of the world’s most notorious prisons, as someone with at least five multi-million-pound homes and an estimated net worth of between $600 million and $1 billion? Well, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is the person to ask.

To say his lavish lifestyle of global stardom and industry prowess has come crashing down before him would be an understatement.

On 16 September, Combs was indicted on multiple charges of sex trafficking and racketeering (organised crime that involves a pattern of illegal activities for profit). He faces more than 125 allegations of sexual assault, abuse, drugging and transportation to engage in prostitution dating from 1991 to this year. One of his alleged victims was as young as nine years old.

Combs has repeatedly denied all charges against him and plans to plead not guilty in court. If found guilty, he faces life imprisonment.

The music mogul is awaiting trial, for which a date has not yet been set, in the notorious Metropolitan Detention Centre of Brooklyn, New York, where living conditions are ‘barbaric’, deadly stabbings are commonplace and there are maggots in the food.

Past inmates include R. Kelly, who is serving a 31-year sentence for racketeering, child sexual abuse, kidnapping, bribery and sex trafficking and Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for helping procure underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse.

In other words, it’s a fairly unenviable location to find yourself in and, having twice been denied bail, Combs is allegedly making ‘relentless efforts’ to plot his way out.

On Monday, it was reported that that the rapper had broken prison rules by contacting potential witnesses in his upcoming trial. Prosecutors allege that he was using other inmates’ telephone accounts and three-way calls to speak to people who are not on his approved contacts list.

They also allege that a review of recorded calls found that Combs had instructed his family to contact potential witnesses in his case.

He appeared in court on Tuesday as a judge weighed the new evidence ahead of his next bail hearing, part of which was found in a notebook in his jail cell. According to NBC News, 11 pages and ‘eight pages of a calendar book’ featuring notes by Combs were seized as part of a ‘planned sweep to address contraband and drugs’.

At the hearing, a judge ordered that prosecutors destroy copies of materials seized in Combs’ jail cell as they weighed up whether the evidence could be used in court.

Combs’ lawyers are proposing a $50m package in a new bid for bail that would see the rapper under house arrest while monitored by 24 hour security personnel.

Lawyer Alexandra Shapiro argued that Combs cannot reasonably prepare for trial from behind bars because of the ‘incredibly voluminous’ amount of material to review. While prosecutors argue that he ‘poses serious risks of danger and obstruction of these proceedings’ if he is released.

Prosecutors also allege that Combs has been orchestrating social media posts and monitoring the analytics to ‘influence a potential jury pool’, including a video and birthday post from his children posted on Instagram. As well as tampering with witness statements during ‘multiple texts’ and ‘multiple calls’ from prison.

‘The defendant has demonstrated an uncanny ability to get others to do his bidding – employees, family members, and inmates alike,’ as the prosecutors put it. ‘There is no reason to believe that private security personnel would be immune.’

It’s not exactly difficult to understand Combs’ motivation for wanting to be released from the Metropolitan Detention Centre, commonly known as the MDC. Aside from improving his ability to prepare for his impending trial, which will no doubt receive global attention and is already tipped to involve several other household names, it would mean he no longer has to endure the conditions of the MDC. A place where chaos and corruption reigns.

The rapper is being held at the Special Housing Unit for inmates who require additional protection and are kept away from other prisoners. He is reportedly sharing a ‘dormitory-style room’ with cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, who once ran a company worth billions but was convicted on multiple counts of fraud in March.

Nevertheless, Combs’ legal team are doing all they can to get him out. In fact, they originally argued that ‘several courts in this District have recognised that the conditions at Metropolitan Detention Centre are not fit for pre-trial detention’.

‘Earlier this summer,’ the lawyers went on to add, ‘an inmate was murdered. At least four inmates have died by suicide there in the past three years.’ Another inmate, Uriel Whyte, was stabbed to death while awaiting trial on gun charges.

Just this week it was reported that a woman died less than 24 hours after being admitted. She is the 31st person to die at the facility or die after being injured or falling ill in the jail since 2020. The majority of whom were detoxing at the time.

Having opened in the 1990s, the MDC has reportedly been riddled with violence, unsanitary conditions, understaffing and a lack of medical care for many years.

In 2019, the prison, which houses around 1,200 people, made headlines after inmates were forced to go days without heat or power during a cold snap. It prompted swathes of New Yorkers to gather outside the building to protest the ‘inhumane’ conditions with signs saying, ‘turn up the heat’ and ‘torture at the MDC’.

The lawyers of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was held at the facility between 2021 and 2022, complained that she was underfed, losing her hair, given meals with plastic melted into the food, drinking contaminated water and was forced to smell the overflowing toilets. She was moved to a prison in Florida when she was sentenced in 2022.

This is experience is far from unique. David Patton, former head of Federal Defenders of New York, previously told NY1 that the prison boasts ‘a lack of medical care’, ‘serious sanitation issues’, ‘maggots in the food’ and ‘violence’. He went on to say, ‘Everything you can think about that’s problematic at a jail or prison is problematic at the MDC, and it has been for a very long time.’

Unsanitary conditions aside, the MDC is also rife with criminal violence. An inmate named Eli once told Spectrum News that stabbings happened ‘at least a couple of times a week’ and ‘one guy was stabbed in the eye with a makeshift knife’.

‘This is my first time in jail,’ he continued, ‘but these knives are six, nine inches long sometimes, you know, homemade with materials from the steel walls. It’s very violent.’

The outlet also obtained a video of life behind bars at the MDC, exposing cockroaches in inmates’ meals, broken lights and mold in the showers.

In an August sentencing decision, Judge Brown cited multiple cases where fellow jurists had hesitated to send defendants and convicts to the MDC because of the conditions. He then cited a case when a defendant was stabbed multiple times in jail but reported receiving no medical care and was instead locked in his cell for 25 days.

‘Allegations of inadequate supervision, unbridled assaults, and a lack of sufficient medical care are supported by an increasing body of evidence, with certain instances that are irrefutable,’ Judge Brown concluded. ‘Chaos reigns, along with uncontrolled violence.’

Andrew Dalack, the lawyer of a 36-year-old man who died in a fight while serving out his sentence in the MDC, echoed this sentiment. ‘It should not be the case that while your life is on the line and your liberty is on the line, that you have to be completely stripped of your humanity. MDC Brooklyn has a way of really breaking people down, and making them feel less than human.’

Combs’ third bail hearing is scheduled for Friday 22 November.