Metro

Mike rips special escort for Diddy

Club 4 Sixty 6 in West Orange, NJ

Club 4 Sixty 6 in West Orange, NJ (Getty Images)

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Mayor Bloomberg launched a probe into the NYPD yesterday after it confirmed leading a Midtown motorcade for rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs so he could make a $75,000 gig in New Jersey — at the request of a dry cleaner.

Internal Affairs cops swarmed the city’s busiest precinct house, Midtown South — searching log records and work schedules — after The Post’s Page Six revealed that New York’s Finest helped whisk the hip-hop honcho from outside the Hammerstein Ball room toward New Jersey so he wouldn’t be late for his second gig Friday night, at a West Or ange club.

Investigators were also looking at videotapes from along 35th Street and at the Times Square substation, where all Midtown activity is recorded, after police copped to the stunning lack of judgment.

“After being repeatedly rebuffed by police officers on the street — and a police lieutenant at the station house — a dry cleaner claiming to represent Sean Combs [Diddy] apparently prevailed upon a sergeant to direct a police van driven by a police officer to escort Combs,” the NYPD said.

A furious Bloomberg blasted the star treatment, saying, “The bottom line is the Police Department should treat everybody exactly the same. If you don’t get a police escort, P. Diddy shouldn’t.”

The fireworks came after Upper East Side dry cleaner John Mahdessian told Page Six Monday that he called in favors from police pals to get Diddy’s Escalade-and-Bentley motorcade a police detail complete with flashing lights.

He said calls for the 11:30 p.m. escort came after plans to fly Diddy to Jersey by helicopter went awry.

The NYPD admitted the well-connected dry cleaner scored the help. The department said the police van escorted Diddy’s parade of cars for one block, from West 35th Street near the Hammerstein to just near the Lincoln Tunnel entrance.

“A police officer [escorted] Combs a total of one city block from mid-West 35th Street, closer to Ninth Avenue, across Ninth Avenue and another half block to Dyer Avenue, after which the Combs party drove unescorted,” the NYPD said.

“Although just one block, the assistance provided was unauthorized and is under investigation.”

Diddy’s fast escape came after he played in front of a packed house at the Hammerstein Ballroom on West 34th Street. For all his trouble getting to the 4 Sixty 6 club in West Orange at warp speed, all he did was perform a couple of songs there and then settle in for the after-party.

The entourage pulled a squad car from regular duty during what is typically the most active night of the week for Midtown South, which proudly dubs itself “the busiest precinct in the world.”

Meanwhile, the New York Rangers reimbursed Washington, DC, $840 for a police escort the NHL team and its owners received Saturday night while they were in town to play the Capitals.

Additional reporting
by Jamie Schram