Text messages presented on Tuesday suggest Sean “Diddy” Combs feared he would be arrested after beating then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura at a California hotel in 2016.
Ventura reportedly did not answer Combs’ calls after the assault, which transpired at the InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles, though she texted him that she checked with security and he is fine as long as he left the other guests alone. According to CNN, Ventura admonished Combs after she ignored two of his calls, and he accused her of “abandoning” him.
“I have a premiere Monday. For the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I have a black eye and a fat lip. It was time for me to go. You are sick for thinking it’s okay to do what you’ve done,” Ventura texted him. “Please stay far away from me.”
Ventura and her friend, Kerry Morgan, both testified that they fled to Ventura’s apartment after the attack. At some point, Ventura reportedly texted Combs’ chief of staff Kristina Khorram, to take any keys Combs may have. Meanwhile, Combs’ security guard, Damion Butler, urged Khorram to get Combs out of there before he gets arrested.
According to CNN, Khorram told Ventura that Combs said if she just spoke to him for five minutes he would not return to her apartment.
Eddie Garcia, the security supervisor at the InterContinental hotel , reportedly got $100,000 for himself and two other employees to conceal the 2016 hotel beating. Garcia testified that hotel security signed nondisclosure agreements before Combs arrived with a brown paper bag and a money counter.
The alleged nondisclosure agreement stipulated a $1 million penalty for breaching it. It also declared that surveillance footage given to Combs was the only copy.
Garcia said authorities were not contacted regarding the 2016 assault, nor did Ventura seek medical attention or law enforcement.
Combs was arrested on September 16, 2024, outside a Manhattan hotel on federal charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs has been denied bail three times, as Judge Andrew L. Carter determined there was a “serious risk” of witness tampering in this case.
Federal authorities raided Combs’ homes in Holmby Hills, California, and Miami in March 2024. Reports indicated that the raids were connected to an ongoing sex trafficking investigation that resulted in his arrest months later.
The raids also occurred four months after Ventura accused him of sex trafficking and abuse. In a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, she alleged that Combs drugged her and forced her to have sex with other men. The pair settled the lawsuit a day after its filing.
However, in May 2024, CNN publicized hotel surveillance footage allegedly showing Combs assaulting Ventura. After the video was released, Combs released a video expressing remorse for his behavior.
Two more accusers came forward a week after Ventura’s lawsuit. One of the women claimed Combs drugged and raped her at Syracuse University in New York in 1991. Combs denied those allegations before a third accuser, Liza Gardner, levied similar allegations against him.
Days after footage of the Ventura assault was publicized, two more women filed lawsuits against Combs. One of those women was April Lampros, a New York Fashion Institute of Technology student who reportedly met Combs in 1994. Lampros accused Combs of sexually assaulting her on four occasions between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s.
Combs has been accused of committing or facilitating sexual abuse in at least 30 other lawsuits — including one, filed in October, which alleges he and Jay-Z raped a 13-year-old girl in New York in 2000. The accuser in that case had her lawsuit dismissed in February.
Combs turned down a plea deal days before jury selection began. His trial is expected to last two months.
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[Feature Photo: CNN video screengrab]
