Disgraced music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs had the chance to settle singer Cassie Ventura’s accusations of rape and different bodily abuse earlier than she went public – however he refused, resulting in his skilled downfall and certain setting the stage for federal intercourse trafficking and racketeering costs towards him, based on a brand new podcast.
That fateful resolution from Combs is explored within the opener of Legislation & Crime’s The Rise and Fall of Diddy, a three-episode collection that’s scheduled to debut Wednesday.
Because the collection recounts, Ventura and Combs ended a decade-long, on-and-off relationship in October 2018. She later married and had a baby with a private coach whom Combs had initially employed for her, Alex Tremendous, whereas largely avoiding talking about her ex.
However then New York’s passage of a legislation that quickly suspended submitting deadlines for lawsuits looking for civil damages over years-old sexual assault circumstances prompted Ventura to contact Combs once more.
“She got here to him earlier than she filed [any] lawsuit and mentioned, ‘I believed I used to be wronged by you,’” lawyer and authorized commentator Donte Mills says on the present, a preview of which was supplied to the Guardian. “And he or she gave him a chance to settle the case earlier than she introduced [a] lawsuit.”
Mills, offered on the Rise and Fall of Diddy as a authorized insider with intimate information of the case, added: “And I do know that each Sean Combs’ attorneys and Cassie’s attorneys had been in dialog, in talks, to see if they will resolve the lawsuit, however they weren’t in a position to and people settlement negotiations fell by way of.”
The fallout from these unsuccessful talks was volcanic. Hours earlier than the expiration of New York’s Grownup Survivors Act in late November 2023, Ventura filed a lawsuit asserting that Combs raped her in addition to in any other case abused her bodily, mentally and emotionally, because the Rise and Fall of Diddy notes.
She additionally maintained that Combs compelled her to have interaction in intercourse with male intercourse staff, encounters that had been recorded on video.
It took a few day for the three-time Grammy winner to conform to pay an undisclosed sum to settle Ventura’s claims out of courtroom. However that response from Combs did not defuse a wave of lawsuits that adopted from different folks with comparable allegations.
Federal authorities constructing a sex-trafficking case towards Combs raided his properties in Los Angeles and Miami in March. In Might, CNN had obtained and printed a lodge safety digicam video exhibiting Combs battering Ventura in 2016, exposing his denials that he had accomplished something incorrect as lies.
In the end, in September, authorities arrested Combs on costs that he would power sex-trafficking victims to take part in group intercourse acts together with his associates whereas he recorded video and masturbated. The charging paperwork labeled these encounters “freak offs”. And the paperwork mentioned the “freak offs” had been so bodily exhausting for Combs and his victims – who, amongst different abuses, had been coerced into ingesting medication – that every one usually required intravenous fluids to rehydrate afterwards.
“I really consider the downfall of Sean Combs … started [with] the Cassie Ventura lawsuit,” Mills says on the Rise and Fall of Diddy, whose host is Legislation & Crime anchor Jesse Weber and which is being launched to subscribers of the Wondery+ platform.
The Guardian has sought remark from publicists for Combs. Combs, who turned 55 in November, has pleaded not responsible to the costs towards him.
He’s awaiting the end result of the case towards him in federal custody. On 27 November, Combs was denied bail a 3rd time, with federal decide Arun Subramanian describing him as a “severe danger” for witness tampering.
Prosecutors had beforehand alleged that Combs tried to achieve out to potential witnesses and affect public opinion whereas in jail ready for his case to be resolved.
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