Rapper Sean Combs (known as Puff Daddy or Diddy) has a long history of lawsuits for violence. In the last six months he has been reported up to five times for sexual violence and abuse by four women and one man. Although in the complaints there were non-explicit photographs of him or him with his victims, until now it was a matter of lawsuits, of words. But if the statements of his victims were already chilling, now there are images that give even more overwhelming testimony. Some images from closed-circuit cameras in a hotel show the musician beating up the artist Casandra Ventura, known as Cassie, with whom he had an on-and-off relationship for 13 years and who, in November, was the first to sue him, although barely 36 hours later he withdrew the complaint.
Distributed exclusively by CNN, the images are very harsh, so much so that the network has placed a warning sign before the video. This was recorded at the luxurious Intercontinental hotel in Century City, in Los Angeles (California) on March 5, 2016. It is captured by different cameras, and Ventura is seen leaving a hotel room. She is barefoot, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and carrying her purse and a travel bag. She walks quickly down the hallway and turns to another area. Combs is then seen leaving that room, covered only by a white towel that he wraps around her waist, and runs after her. He finds her in the elevator area and there he begins to attack her. He grabs her by the neck, throws her to the ground and kicks her several times. The musician grabs the hood of his sweatshirt and drags his girlfriend down the hallway. After leaving her hanging, he takes her things, and then returns to continue dragging her. In other images, he is seen sitting in a chair, throwing nearby objects at her, although she no longer appears on the camera.
According to CNN, the former model has declined to comment on the video, as has Combs or the hotel chain. Cassandra Ventura’s lawyer is one of the few who have spoken out on the matter: “This heartbreaking video only further confirms Combs’ disturbing and predatory behavior. “There are no words to express the courage and strength Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”
The facts fit exactly with the situations described by Ventura in the lawsuit he filed against Combs on November 17, 2023. In those documents, the facts that are now seen in the recordings are read step by step. She — who dated Combs on and off between 2005 and 2018 — said he often forced her to take drugs and beat her, both at their homes and in hotels, sometimes keeping her in bed for days because of her injuries and bruises caused, locking her up without allowing her to see friends or family. Ventura recounts exactly this episode (as well as an earlier one, from 2009), and how while she was trying to escape from her, he woke up from her and threw glass vases at her through the hallways. She explained that there was no record of the incident because the musician had paid $50,000 for the security camera recording.
The beatings took place in hotels or in his various homes, and even if she was injured or bruised and had to spend days in bed, she was not allowed to see her family and friends. In her lawsuit, Cassie recalls two episodes of hers, which occurred in 2009 and 2016, both in Los Angeles hotels, where he forced her to take drugs, hit her or chased her through the hallways. That happened on her second: he hit her, leaving her face bruised, until she fell asleep. She tried to escape from it and he woke up from her, and then he lunged at her, throwing glass vases at her down the hallway. There was no record, because he paid $50,000 for the security camera recording.
Ventura filed the lawsuit, in which he carefully described the harsh attacks received by Combs for years, in mid-November, but decided to withdraw it just a day later, which suggested that both had reached an out-of-court agreement. However, it was only the beginning. A few days later, another woman named Joi Dickerson-Neal accused him of having raped her in 1991, when she was a 19-year-old student, and of having recorded a video of the rape of her. After her, a third woman, Liza Gardner, said that in collusion with another singer named Aaron Hall, in 1990 they both sexually abused her and a friend of hers. Furthermore, in February a producer named Rodney Jones Jr., a frequent collaborator of Combs, accused him of non-consensual touching, of walking naked in front of him, and of pressuring him with violence and money.
But what may be the most serious allegation against Combs came in early December. Then a woman who has not given her name but has provided photographs and videos stated that he had raped her in 2003, when she was 17 years old, along with other men. The young woman, now a 38-year-old woman, explained in the 14 pages of her complaint how one night she met the president of Combs’ record company, named Harve Pierre, in a bar in Detroit (Michigan) and how shortly afterward they both called the rapper on the phone and he assured her that he would love to meet her. After her, Pierre forced her to smoke crack and abused her in a bathroom, forcing her to perform oral sex on him. After her, he flew her on her private plane to New York, where she met Combs at his recording studio and was forced to consume more drugs and alcohol. Pierre, Combs (who was 34 at the time, twice her age) and another man raped her that night and the next morning she was sent on another plane to Michigan. The point is that, due to the transfers from one state to another, this can involve a crime of sex trafficking (and also with a minor), just as it could have been with Ventura, who suffered abuse throughout the country.
All of this has led to a federal investigation, at the highest level, which became known at the end of March, when the police searched Combs’ home in Los Angeles and also some of his planes. At the moment no details of it are known nor, of course, its conclusions.
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