Howard Rubin, the wealthy financier who was charged in an alleged sex-trafficking scheme in which he sexually brutalized women inside luxury hotels and a Manhattan penthouse “sex dungeon,” will be held at the same notorious Brooklyn jailhouse as Sean “Diddy” Combs and Luigi Mangione, the U.S. attorney general confirmed Saturday.
The 70-year-old Wall Street tycoon will be held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park as he awaits his court case after being ordered held without bail Friday at his arraignment in Brooklyn Federal Court, during which he pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The much-maligned federal jail has held music mogul Combs since his September 2024 arrest as he awaits sentencing on prostitution charges. Mangione, accused of assassinating healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December on a Midtown Manhattan street, is being held in MDC’s intake unit — which, according to a source, is where Rubin is also being held, at least for now. Combs, meanwhile, is being held in a less-restrictive area in what’s known as a cadre unit.
Rubin was picked up by the feds Friday in Fairfield, Conn., in an early-morning bust as a bombshell 10-count indictment dropped the same day accusing him of sex trafficking and transporting people for prostitution, stemming from allegations by at least nine women.
At his arraignment, Judge Peggy Kuo ordered Rubin remanded, deeming him a flight risk and a continued danger to the community.
“This is a very serious set of allegations. He was allegedly involved in very violent behavior and faces very serious criminal penalties,” Kuo said, also citing Rubin’s alleged attempts to intimidate his accusers, including hiring a hitman on the dark web, in her reasons for denying bail.
Rubin’s personal assistant, Jennifer Powers, 45, was also arrested in Texas for allegedly facilitating “all aspects” of his abuse as his right-hand in the scheme. Powers was set to be transferred to New York for her court appearance.
The feds say that from 2009 to 2019, Rubin and Powers lured Playboy models and other women to the city under false pretenses, where they were tortured and left “deformed” after bondage, discipline, dominance, submission and sadomasochism sessions, known as BDSM.
Among several distressing incidents alleged in court documents are details of Rubin raping women after they had fallen unconscious or were unable to give consent because they were “gagged and thus unable to coherently speak.”
The abuse mostly took place at luxury hotels in Manhattan before Rubin in 2011 began leasing a 76th-floor penthouse on W. 57th St., with he and Powers transforming one of its bedrooms into a “sex dungeon.” The room was painted red, soundproofed, equipped with an electrocution device and regularly stocked by Powers with other BDSM equipment, court documents say.
“Human beings are not chattel to be exploited for sex and sadistically abused, and anyone who thinks otherwise can expect to find themselves in handcuffs and facing federal prosecution, like these defendants,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said of the arrests.
