Sean Combs’s New Home: A Troubled Brooklyn Jail

When Sean Combs flew from Miami to New York this month to prepare for an expected federal indictment, he left behind his expansive mansion with multiple pools, a spa and a guesthouse on a man-made island.

Going forward, though, home for Mr. Combs will most likely be the Metropolitan Detention Center, a hulking concrete structure in Brooklyn that houses more than 1,200 people and has a reputation for poor conditions.

Mr. Combs was ordered held in federal detention on Tuesday and taken to the Brooklyn jail after a judge denied him bail. A grand jury had indicted him on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, and prosecutors said he was a dangerous person who would be at risk to flee if released.

It was a sudden change of circumstances for a music producer, known in the industry as Diddy and Puff Daddy, who has been wealthy since becoming one of the most prominent record label founders of the 1990s. Jail records now have him registered under the number 37452-054.

The M.D.C., as it is known, has been troubled by deaths and suicides and an electrical fire that once left inmates without heat for days in the dead of winter. A lawyer for Edwin Cordero, a detainee who died there in July from injuries he sustained in a fight, called the prison “an overcrowded, understaffed and neglected federal jail that is hell on earth.”

The Bureau of Prisons responded to criticism in a statement that said it “takes seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted in our custody, as well as maintain the safety of correctional employees and the community.”