The parties often took place in some of Miami’s most luxurious hotels: the Mandarin Oriental, with sweeping views of Biscayne Bay; the 1 Hotel, on the white sands of South Beach; and the fabled Fontainebleau, the iconic landmark hotel that symbolizes the timeless elegance of Old Miami.
But what is alleged to have happened in these lavish hotel rooms — not just in Miami, but also in five-star hotels in Atlanta, New York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles — were sex parties so brutal that the young women and men lured into attending them would often vomit and pass out from being drugged, beaten and raped, sometimes for hours on end.
Several lawsuits filed over the past six months allege that flamboyant music producer Sean “Diddy” Combs called these self-styled bacchanals “Freak-Offs,” or “F.O.s” The gatherings were specially arranged for his hedonistic appetite — and according to the lawsuits — Combs often filmed the encounters as he directed his staff to change the lighting or bedding to better display the women and men who performed for him sexually.
Dangled over hotel balcony
One of his alleged victims was Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, an aspiring young R&B singer who met Combs when she was 19 and he was 37. As a founder of Bad Boys Records, he helped promote her career, then forced her into years of physical and sexual servitude, Ventura alleges in a lawsuit she filed against the megastar in November in Manhattan federal court.
At one of the hotel parties, she claims a drunken Combs beat her, then later, picked up one of the women in the hotel suite as if she were a child and dangled her over the 17th floor balcony of the unidentified hotel. There were other assaults at hotels around the country, according to the lawsuit, and Combs often paid the hotels tens of thousands of dollars for damages — and to take possession of any security footage that may have captured his violent behavior, the lawsuits claim.
One day after Ventura filed the lawsuit, which garnered international attention, the rapper settled it for an undisclosed sum. Combs noted that the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing.
But the horrifying allegations opened the floodgates to more lawsuits — and ultimately, a federal sex trafficking investigation that led agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to search Combs’ estates in Miami Beach and Los Angeles on Monday. Federal investigators were concerned that Diddy, 54, would destroy evidence, prompting them to obtain search warrants, a source familiar with the investigation told the Miami Herald.
Combs, through his attorney, denies all the allegations against him — and he has not been charged with a crime. He was briefly questioned by authorities at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport on Monday, then allowed to leave the country with family and friends on a private jet.
A plane linked to him was in the Caribbean island of Antigua and Barbuda on Tuesday, but two high-ranking government sources there told the Herald there was no record that he entered the country. His plane was spotted at the Opa Locka airport Wednesday, according to photos from local TV stations.
Diddy on raid: ‘Unprecedented ambush’
Combs’ attorney, Aaron Dyer, called the federal raid “an unprecedented ambush” that has led to “a premature rush to judgment of Mr. Combs and is nothing more than a witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits…Mr. Combs is innocent and will continue to fight every single day to clear his name.”
Combs, also known by the names “Puff Daddy” and “Diddy,” has been accused by several other women of sexual assault, one of whom was 17 when the abuse happened, according to the court filing.
Rodney “’Lil Rod” Jones, a music producer, is also suing Combs, alleging in a February lawsuit that Combs drugged him without his knowledge and forced him to have sex with male prostitutes as part of one of his “Freak-Offs.” Jones also claimed the music mogul installed hundreds of hidden cameras in his homes to record people having sex.
Jones compared Combs to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — and he likened Combs’ chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, to Epstein’s former assistant, Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell, 62, is serving a 20-year-sentence for sex trafficking of minors. Epstein died while in custody awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in New York.
The Herald was unsuccessful in reaching Khorram.
Jones’ lawsuit also takes aim at several music executives, unnamed R&B artists and rappers, and actor Cuba Gooding Jr., whom he alleges either knew about or participated in sex activities. Jones added Gooding as co-defendant in an amended complaint filed Monday in a New York federal district court.
Parties at Miami strip club
Jones claims that he was directed by Combs and others employed by him to go out to the “The Booby Trap on the River” a Miami strip club, to recruit sex workers and other men and women for Combs and his friends to pay for sex.
“Mr Combs provided Mr. Jones with an exclusive ‘Bad Boy’ baseball cap and required him to wear it to the Booby Trap on the River as a signal to any sex worker that he approached that Mr. Combs was in town and had sent Mr. Jones to recruit them,” Jones says in the lawsuit filed by New York attorney Tyrone Blackburn.
Lawyer Donald Zakarin, who represents the music executives initially named by Jones, called Jones’ allegations against his clients “a complete fabrication.” His clients, Ethiopia Habtemariam, former CEO of Motown Records, and Lucian Charles Grainge, the CEO of Universal Music Group, never had any indication that Combs was trafficking or abusing anyone, Zakarin said Wednesday. (Jones has since filed an amended complaint dropping Habtemariam from the suit).
In her legal action, Ventura identifies a number of people whom she claims helped enable Combs, including staffers, security guards, drug dealers — and an unidentified Miami doctor who prescribed her pills.
New York attorney Douglas Wigdor, who represents Ventura and another Jane Doe victim, said he and his clients welcomed the federal investigation.
“We will always support law enforcement when it seeks to prosecute those that have violated the law,” he said in a statement. “Hopefully, this is the beginning of a process that will hold Mr. Combs responsible for his depraved conduct.”
Ventura still suffers trauma from her years with Combs.
“During some of the [Freak-Offs] Mr. Combs would become extremely intoxicated and would hit Ms. Ventura in front of the male sex workers,” the lawsuit claimed. She said the “F.O.s” were often so violent that she would vomit. And at other times, he forced her hide away at a hotel until her bruises healed, her suit alleges.
“Ms. Ventura was repulsed by Mr. Combs’ demands, but between the physical beating and recognizing his incredible power and incredible temper, Ms. Ventura became petrified of her partner and boss, and felt she could not say no.”
Paid to get hotel security footage, suit claims
In one incident in March 2016, Ventura described how — at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City, California — Combs had been beating her in the hotel room. She said she fled into the hotel hallway where Combs continued to attack her, grabbing a glass vase and throwing it at her.
“When she returned, hotel security staff urged her to get back into a cab and go to her apartment, suggesting that they had seen the security footage showing Mr. Combs beating Ms. Ventura and throwing glass at her in the hotel hallway,” the lawsuit said.
She noted that Combs then paid the hotel $50,000 for the security footage.
After this incident, Ventura left her home in California and went to stay at a friend’s home in Florida, the lawsuit said.
But James Cruz, president of Bad Boy Management, tracked her down and told her that her music single would not be released if she did not answer Mr. Combs’s phone calls.
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