The events usually took place in some of Miami’s most magnificent resorts: the Mandarin Oriental, with sweeping views of Biscayne Bay, the 1 Hotel, on the white sands of South Beach, and the famous Fontainebleau, the memorable landmark hotel that symbolizes the timeless beauty of Old Miami.
However, what is alleged to possess occurred in these beautiful hotel rooms was allegedly a sexual act against women and men, sometimes for hours on end, at sex parties that were so terrible that the younger women and men who were lured into attending them would frequently vomit and pass out.
According to several lawsuits filed over the past six decades, flamboyant music producer Sean” Diddy” Combs called these self-styled bacchanals” Weird- Downs,” or” F. O. s.” The gatherings were specially arranged for his sensual hunger, and Combs frequently filmed the encounters as he directed his team to modify the lighting or linen to better show 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. In a lawsuit she filed against the megastar in November in Manhattan federal court, Ventura claims that he helped her advance her career before forcing her into years of physical and sexual servitude.
She claims that at one of the hotel parties, 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 balcony of the unidentified hotel’s 17th floor. According to the lawsuit, there were other assaults at hotels all over the country, and Combs frequently paid the hotels tens of thousands of dollars for damages as well as taking possession of any security footage that might have captured his violent behavior, according to the lawsuits.
The rapper settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed sum the day after Ventura filed it, which attracted attention from around the world. Combs noted that the settlement was not a declaration of guilt.
However, the gruesome allegations caused more lawsuits to start, and ultimately, a federal sex trafficking investigation that saw the U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents 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. On Monday, he was given a briefing by Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport’s police, who then allowed him to leave the country with family and friends on a private jet.
On Tuesday, two senior government officials confirmed that a plane linked to him was located in Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean island nation, but there is no evidence that he entered.  , His plane was spotted at the Opa Locka airport Wednesday, according to photos from local TV stations.
Diddy on raid: ‘ Unprecedented ambush ‘
Aaron Dyer, Combs ‘ attorney, described the federal raid as” an unprecedented ambush” that has resulted in” a premature rush to judgment of Mr. Combs and is nothing more than a witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits.” Combs is innocent and will fight day and 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.
In a February lawsuit, Rodney” Lil Rod” Jones, a producer of music, alleges that Combs forced him to have sex with male prostitutes as part of one of his” Freak-Offs,” and drugged him without his knowledge. Joneses also asserted that Joneses had hidden cameras set up 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 passed away while awaiting trial in New York on sex trafficking charges.
Khorram was unable to be reached by The Herald.
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. In a modified complaint filed on Monday in a New York federal district court, Jones added Gooding as a co-defendant.
Parties at the Miami Strip Club
Jones asserts that Combs and others who work for him directed 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.
In the lawsuit brought by New York attorney Tyrone Blackburn, Jones claims that Mr. Combs gave Mr. Jones an exclusive” Bad Boy” baseball cap and demanded that he wear it to the Booby Trap on the River to warn any sex workers that he had been recruiting them.
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 updated his complaint to remove Habtemariam from the case. )
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.
In a statement, he said,” We will always support law enforcement when it attempts to prosecute those who have broken the law.” ” Hopefully, this is the beginning of a process that will hold Mr. Combs responsible for his depraved conduct”.
Ventura continues to experience trauma from her years working for 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 “repeated Mr. Combs ‘ demands,” but she became agitated over her partner and boss after realizing his incredible power and temper.
In one incident from March 2016, Ventura claimed that Combs had been beating her in the hotel room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City, California. She claimed she grabbed a glass vase and threw it at her in the hotel hallway where Combs continued to attack her.
The lawsuit claimed that when she returned, hotel security staff advised her to get back into a cab and leave for her apartment after suggesting that they had seen the security footage that showed Mr. Combs beating Ms. Ventura and kicking her with glass in the hotel hallway.
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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