A former inmate who lived alongside Sean “Diddy” Combs at MDC Brooklyn is speaking out- revealing what really happened behind bars, including the shocking knife incident and an unlikely story of redemption
In his first interview since leaving federal custody, Raymond Castillo, a former inmate at Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn, says hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was nothing like the media headlines suggested. Castillo not only lived with him at the MDC, but he was also a “student” of Combs’. Castillo, who spent 46 months at the facility on drug-related offenses and served as Combs’ teacher’s assistant in a self-created business and leadership course, described the former music star as “a humbled man” who united rival gangs, preached faith, and helped him change his life.
“Before I met him, I was ready to go right back to crime,” Castillo told Los Angeles contributor Lauren Conlin on a podcast. “He told me if I did, I’d end up dead or back in jail. Every plan, he said, needs God in it.”
According to Castillo (and this was discussed at length during Combs’ sentencing), Combs founded an entrepreneurship and personal development program that became one of the most unlikely success stories inside a federal lockup. The class was held once a week for two hours. It shockingly drew Bloods, Crips, MS-13 members, and inmates of every race into the same room for lessons on discipline, faith, and self-improvement.
“It’s something that has never been done in the prison system,” Castillo said. “Black sticks with Black, White sticks with White, Spanish sticks with Spanish…especially gang members. But Diddy was able to unify everybody. For those two hours, there were no fights, no gangs-just people focused on change.”
He said the program impressed even correctional officers, who initially thought a brawl was breaking out when they saw thirty men gathered in one room. “When they realized it was class, they were speechless,” Castillo recalled. “They saw all races, all cultures, together…and it was Diddy up there teaching everyone.”
Castillo also clarified months of tabloid speculation that Combs had survived an attempted “shank attack” behind bars. “He didn’t ‘wake up’ to no knife to his neck,” Castillo said. “And I was the one who intervened.”
He recounted that the confrontation began over a chair, not a planned attack. A West Coast gang member serving a 30-year sentence tried to take a seat Combs was already using while watching television – “Basketball Wives,” to be exact.
“The guy got hostile.. maybe looking for clout,” Castillo said. “Diddy didn’t flinch. He stayed calm, told him, ‘Why you coming at me like that over a chair that don’t belong to none of us?’ When the inmate retrieved a handmade knife from a hiding spot, Castillo said he grabbed the man’s arm before he could strike. “Diddy just got up and told him, ‘You might need to pray,’” Castillo said. “He tried to calm the guy down and even offered to pray with him. I’ve never seen anyone handle it like that.”
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Castillo added that Combs later spoke up for the would-be attacker, asking guards not to remove him from the unit.
Combs, Castillo said, lived like an ordinary inmate- no special treatment. Same meals, same cold trays, same lockdowns. But when he wasn’t teaching, he often paced in slow circles around the unit, murmuring prayers.“We thought he was going crazy,” Castillo said with a laugh. “I asked him what he was doing, and he told me he was having long conversations with God. He said if God put him there, it was for a purpose… to help people who’d lost hope.”
The former inmate described conditions inside MDC as “hellish,” citing rampant violence, corruption, and overcrowding. “People’s really dying in there,” he said. “It’s a war zone. I’ve seen people get stabbed and have their lungs collapse. Diddy lived through all of that… no special treatment.”
Castillo says Combs’ teachings pushed him to convert to Islam, finish his sentence with purpose, and reject the criminal lifestyle that landed him there. “He believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself,” Castillo said. “I thank God for putting Diddy in my life. That was a blessing in disguise.”
The leadership course Combs designed, Castillo added, has since been sanctioned by the Bureau of Prisons as an official rehabilitation program now being expanded to other facilities. Combs remains in federal custody, serving a 50-month sentence following his Mann Act convictions, and has already filed an appeal with a request to fast-track.