Combs Denies Having Gun After Arrest Following Club Shooting

Jet, Jan 17, 2000

Hip-hop music mogul Sean "Puffy" Combs recently was released on $10,000 bail after he spent a day behind bars for alleged weapons possession in the wake of a shooting at a Times Square dance club.

Combs was arrested after police allegedly found a stolen pistol in his car as he and actress-singer-dancer Jennifer Lopez left Club NY where two men and a woman were wounded in an early morning shooting.

"I do not own a gun," Combs told reporters after he was arraigned on weapons charges. "I do not carry a gun. The charges and allegations against me are 100 percent false."

After he was released, he was ordered back in court on Feb. 14.

Lopez also was arrested, but prosecutors dropped charges against her "based on the evaluation of the evidence," said Wayne Brison, a spokesman for the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Two of the victims were in stable condition, but the third refused medical attention.

Police said the shots were fired by 19-year-old Jamal Barrow, Combs' rap protege who uses the stage name Shyne, who was found outside the club with a pistol. He was charged with three counts of attempted murder and was being held pending arraignment.

A Manhattan judge set $35,000 bail for Barrow. He was out after his grandmother put up the family's Brooklyn home as collateral, his lawyer, Murray Richman, told the New York Post.

The dispute started when someone threw money into Combs' face, police said. Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos said a witness reported that Barrow and Combs both pulled out guns.

Combs emphatically denied pulling out a gun.

A short time after the shooting, Combs and Lopez left the club in a 1999 Lincoln Navigator belonging to Combs' recording company, Bad Boy.

The vehicle was stopped because the couple had left the scene of a crime, said Detective John Giammarino, a police spokesman.

A gun--which police said was not used in the shooting-was found in full view on the front right seat; Combs and Lopez were in the back seat, with a driver and a bodyguard in the front. A police source who spoke on condition of anonymity said the gun had been reported stolen from Georgia.

The driver, Wardel Fenderson, and the bodyguard, Anthony Jones, also were arraigned on charges of criminal possession of a gun. Fenderson was released on $10,000 bail and Jones on $20,000 bail.