American rapper P. Diddy targeted by rape complaint

2023-11-17 00:11:00

American hip hop megastar Sean Combs, aka Puff Daddy or Diddy, was targeted Thursday in New York by a complaint of rape and physical violence for years by R&B singer Casandra Venura, Cassie by her stage name. According to a court document from the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office, “Mr. Combs raped Ms. Ventura in her home after she attempted to leave him” and “frequently punched, kicked, punched, stomped on Ms. Ventura with results of bruises, burst lips, black eyes and bleeding,” details the 35-page complaint filed Thursday with the American federal justice system.

This document made public Thursday evening, first revealed by the New York Times, also targets the rap musician and producer’s companies and labels, Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy Records, Epic Records, Combs Enterprises and Doe Corporations 1-10. American justice – which recorded the testimony against Ms. Ventura, who had met Mr. Combs in 2005 when she was 19 and he was 37 – accuses the rap star of having engaged in “violent behavior” and “deviant demands” for “more than a decade”.

This legal action is made possible thanks to a law in the State of New York which has allowed since November 2022, but for one year only, victims of sexual violence to file a civil complaint for prescribed facts.

P. Diddy “fiercely” denies

“For Ms. Ventura, the ‘dark period’ was the one she experienced trapped by Mr. Combs in a cycle of assault, violence and sex trafficking,” underlines singer Cassie’s complaint. Sean Combs’ New York lawyer, Ben Brafman, “fiercely” denied the allegations, which he described in a statement to AFP as “insulting and scandalous.”

The complaint, however, describes a violent man, even forcing the victim to have filmed sexual relations with male prostitutes. Ms. Ventura “cannot continue to live in silence after what she has endured,” underlines the court document. “Mr Combs remains immensely powerful and dangerous. Ms. Ventura is seeking justice for the decade of life Mr. Combs took from her through threats of violence, drug addiction, physical and psychological abuse, and sexual slavery.”

For Casandra Ventura, it “was obvious that with the very imminent expiration (end of November) of the New York law (on the protection of victims of sexual violence), I had the opportunity to speak loud and clear about the trauma that I suffered and from which I will recover during what I have left to live.

Sean Combs, 54, founded his company Bad Boy in 1993, a decade of glory for this major figure in the marketing and media coverage of the hip hop scene, a musical and artistic movement born in New York 50 years ago, in August 1973. Puff Daddy’s disciples are the late Notorious BIG, who died in 1997, and Mary J. Blige. Sean Combs is part of the hip hop billionaires club, also thanks to his business in the alcohol industry.