podcast.<\/a> \u201cHe told me if I did, I\u2019d end up dead or back in jail. Every plan, he said, needs God in it.\u201d<\/p>\nAccording to Castillo (and this was discussed at length during Combs\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that has never been done in the prison system,\u201d Castillo said. \u201cBlack sticks with Black, White sticks with White, Spanish sticks with Spanish\u2026especially gang members. But Diddy was able to unify everybody. For those two hours, there were no fights, no gangs-just people focused on change.\u201d<\/p>\n
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. \u201cWhen they realized it was class, they were speechless,\u201d Castillo recalled. \u201cThey saw all races, all cultures, together\u2026and it was Diddy up there teaching everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castillo also clarified months of tabloid speculation that Combs had survived an attempted \u201cshank attack\u201d behind bars. \u201cHe didn\u2019t \u2018wake up\u2019 to no knife to his neck,\u201d Castillo said. \u201cAnd I was the one who intervened.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 \u201cBasketball Wives,\u201d to be exact.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guy got hostile.. maybe looking for clout,\u201d Castillo said. \u201cDiddy didn\u2019t flinch. He stayed calm, told him, \u2018Why you coming at me like that over a chair that don\u2019t belong to none of us?\u2019 When the inmate retrieved a handmade knife from a hiding spot, Castillo said he grabbed the man\u2019s arm before he could strike. \u201cDiddy just got up and told him, \u2018You might need to pray,\u2019\u201d Castillo said. \u201cHe tried to calm the guy down and even offered to pray with him. I\u2019ve never seen anyone handle it like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scroll to continue reading<\/p>\n
Castillo added that Combs later spoke up for the would-be attacker, asking guards not to remove him from the unit.<\/p>\n
Combs, Castillo said, lived like an ordinary inmate- no special treatment. Same meals, same cold trays, same lockdowns. But when he wasn\u2019t teaching, he often paced in slow circles around the unit, murmuring prayers.\u201cWe thought he was going crazy,\u201d Castillo said with a laugh. \u201cI 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\u2026 to help people who\u2019d lost hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former inmate described conditions inside MDC as \u201chellish,\u201d citing rampant violence, corruption, and overcrowding. \u201cPeople\u2019s really dying in there,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a war zone. I\u2019ve seen people get stabbed and have their lungs collapse. Diddy lived through all of that\u2026 no special treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castillo says Combs\u2019 teachings pushed him to convert to Islam, finish his sentence with purpose, and reject the criminal lifestyle that landed him there. \u201cHe believed in me when I couldn\u2019t believe in myself,\u201d Castillo said. \u201cI thank God for putting Diddy in my life. That was a blessing in disguise.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former inmate who lived alongside Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs at MDC Brooklyn is speaking out- revealing what really…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,11624,15009,9,24,63,13255],"class_list":{"0":"post-22690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-news","11":"tag-diddy","12":"tag-mdc","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-sean-diddy-combs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}