Sean ‘Diddy' Combs made chilling 3-word threat after beating Cassie Ventura in hotel, security guard testifies
A security guard testified about a threat Sean 'Diddy' Combs allegedly made after the rapper beat his then-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, in a hotel in 2016.
Los Angeles Police Department officer Israel Florez took the stand in Combs' sex-trafficking trial Monday, telling the jury that he was called to a woman in distress on the sixth floor of the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Calif.
The officer said he immediately recognized Combs, who was dressed in nothing but a white towel, but did not know Ventura at the time.
'She was scared. She was in the corner, hood on, covered up,' Florez testified.
'I couldn't see her face. She was pretty much in the corner. On the floor was a destroyed flower vase.'
Florez claimed Combs told him he and Ventura had been arguing. While the hip-hop mogul was speaking, the officer noticed the 'Me & U' singer trying to walk away and get her phone. However, the three-time Grammy winner allegedly told her she could not leave.
Florez told jurors he put his body in the doorway and stood there for a few minutes until Ventura was able to leave the hotel room.
'I started to leave, and [Combs] called for me. He had a sack of money, and he threw it at me and said, 'Don't tell anyone,'' Florez testified.
Page Six has reached out to Combs' reps for comment but did not immediately hear back.
In November 2023, Ventura, now 38, filed a bombshell lawsuit against the 'Last Night' rapper, 55, accusing him of rape and repeated physical abuse.
They settled the next day.
Then, in May 2024, CNN published hotel surveillance footage of Combs attacking Ventura after she tried to escape into an elevator.
In the clip, the Sean John clothing founder could be seen running after the 'Long Way 2 Go' singer while wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.
When he caught up to Ventura, he threw her down on the floor and began kicking her multiple times while she was down. Combs then dragged the pop star down the hallway and threw what appeared to be a flower vase at her as she was backed into a corner.
After the shocking video made headlines, the dad of seven took to Instagram to issue an apology video for his 'inexcusable' behavior — though he notably did not mention his ex in it.
'I went and I sought out professional help, started going to therapy and rehab, had to ask god for his mercy and grace,' he said in the now-deleted clip.
Combs is currently on trial facing charges of racketeering conspiracy; sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; and transportation to engage in prostitution.
He has pleaded not guilty.
The 'I'll be Missing You' emcee is also facing numerous lawsuits accusing him of a range of sexual misconduct.
Ventura, who is currently pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine, is expected to take the stand against Combs, whom she dated on and off for nearly a decade, as soon as Tuesday.
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Here's how the testimony of these seven accusers has turned the tables on Combs, building a case for federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges that could imprison him for anywhere from 15 years to life. Cassie Ventura, his first sex-trafficking accuser R&B singer Cassie Ventura was celebrating her 21st birthday in Las Vegas when Combs, who had signed her to his Bad Boy Records label the year before, surprised her with the kiss that started their relationship. She told the jury that hundreds of times over the next decade, from 2008 until 2018, Combs forced her to meet him at luxury hotels, to dress up in wigs, heels, and lingerie, to take handfuls of drugs, and to have sex with male escorts as Combs filmed and masturbated to the dayslong performances. "I want you to be glistening," she said Combs would tell her as he watched, ordering Ventura and sex workers with names like "Jewels" and "The Punisher" to apply ever more baby oil. These so-called "freak off" performances were first revealed in Ventura's quickly settled 2023 lawsuit. (Combs paid Ventura $20 million.) Ventura's allegations have since been corroborated at trial by freak off videos she'd saved over the years, by hotel records, and by testimony from eye-witnesses, including sex workers. One exotic dancer told jurors he witnessed Combs beating Ventura twice during freak offs in Manhattan between 2012 and 2014. "Bitch, when I tell you to come here, come now, not later," the dancer recalled Combs saying during one of more than a dozen beatings recounted at trial by witnesses and Ventura herself. Proof of sex trafficking Prosecutors say Ventura was sex-trafficked, meaning coerced into crossing state lines to participate in commercial sex acts (commercial because they involved paid sex workers). They say the violent, 2016 InterContinental hotel hallway video is unavoidable proof that she was sex-trafficked by force. 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He loved it when she dressed in lingerie and "high stripper heels." He'd play pornography and tell her to fantasize about the men on screen. "Do you like what you see there?" she said he'd ask her of these men. "Do you want that?" Then one night in 2021 at his Miami mansion, as the pornography rolled, he told her, "I can make this fantasy a reality if you'd like that." She loved him, she explained, and agreeing made him so happy. So she said yes. Jane said she soon realized she'd opened up "Pandora's box." Gone were the romantic trips and dinner dates of their first four months. Combs wanted freak offs — by now he was calling them "hotel nights" — nearly every time they saw each other over the next three years, up until his arrest in 2024. "It was just a door I was unable to shut," she told the jury. Jane must show force, fraud, or coercion Jane's testimony has so far described some of the elements of sex trafficking. She said she reluctantly crossed state lines, traveling from the East Coast to Miami to Los Angeles, to engage with paid sex workers. But her testimony, which continues next week, has yet to show that Combs sex trafficked her using force, fraud, or coercion, as the indictment requires. She instead described intensive psychological and financial pressure. She said she agreed to hotel nights because she loved him, and because he'd moved her to Los Angeles from the East Coast and was paying rent and other costs for her and her child. And when she told him she no longer wanted to do hotel nights, he would brush her off, or make what may or may not rise to the level of a coercive threat to withdraw that financial support. "If you want to break up, that's fine," she testified he'd tell her. "Do you need, like, what, three more months in the house? Because I'm not about to be paying for a woman's rent that I'm not even seeing." Prosecutors have said Combs defrauded Jane by promising romantic dinners and trips, only to renege and persuade her into another hotel night. They have also said Combs was brutally violent with Jane, though it's unclear how they plan to draw a link between that violence and sex trafficking by force. Meanwhile, the defense will likely use hundreds of affectionate and erotic texts between Jane and Combs to argue that she is a bitter ex who willingly suffered any demands and violence, and who continues to have her expenses paid by Combs in return. Asked late Friday who is currently paying her rent, Jane answered, "Sean is." Jane pushes back Prosecutors have also hinted that Jane is a witness to obstruction of justice, one of the underlying crimes they can use to prove the racketeering charge. "You will hear him try to manipulate Jane into saying she wanted freak offs," Emily Johnson, an assistant US attorney, told the jury during May 12 opening statements, describing a phone call recorded after Ventura's lawsuit was filed. "You will hear him interrupt Jane when she pushes back," Johnson said. Prosecutors have also said he made a point of paying for Jane's housing — even after his arrest. "Mia," his rape accuser "Mia," a former Combs employee, told the jury about a night 15 years ago, when she slept in the employee bedroom at his Los Angeles mansion. She woke up with Combs on top of her, she said, telling her, "Be quiet." "It was very quick, but it felt like forever," she said, her voice breaking into quiet, gasping sobs. Mia, like Jane, testified under a pseudonym to protect her privacy. 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Her testimony may also support an underlying crime of bribery and obstruction of justice. Mia told the jury that Combs' bodyguard, Damion "D-Roc" Butler, called and texted her repeatedly in the weeks after Ventura's lawsuit, spinning the "Puff and Cass" relationship as normal, and offering her "a gift." Capricorn Clark, his kidnapping accuser In her testimony, Capricorn Clark, Combs' former personal assistant and marketing exec, supported the Ventura sex-trafficking charge, describing Ventura as docile, trapped, and frequently subjected to beatings. During one beating, Clark said, Combs stopped briefly to warn her, "If I jumped in he was going to fuck me up, too." Kid Cudi, kidnapping, and extortion Clark is primarily a racketeering witness. Her testimony supports the underlying crimes of kidnapping and extortion. Clark said Combs was so enraged by Ventura's brief 2011 romance with rival rapper Kid Cudi that he forced Clark at gunpoint to ride with him and a bodyguard to Cudi's nearby house in Hollywood Hills. "He just said get dressed, we're going to go kill this —" and here he used the N-word. Cudi — whose given name is Scott Mescudi — told the jury that he arrived home to find his dog locked in the bathroom and a table full of Christmas presents unwrapped and rifled through. Clark also corroborated trial testimony by Ventura and her mom, Regina Ventura, concerning what prosecutors call a $20,000 extortion threat. The mom said she wired Combs the money after he threatened to release explicit sex tapes of her daughter. Dawn Richard, death-threat witness Former Danity Kane singer Dawn Richard testified to a brutal 2009 beating at Combs' rented Los Angeles mansion that supports both the Ventura sex-trafficking-by-force allegation and racketeering. 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Bryana "Bana" Bongolan, who says Combs dangled her over a balcony Bryana "Bana" Bongolan, a marketing director, told jurors she and Ventura are longtime friends. They shared a lot of drugs over the years, she said — including cocaine, ketamine, and GHB. They also shared trauma, she told the jury. She once saw Combs throw a knife at Ventura, who she said threw it back. "I'm the devil and I could kill you," she testified Combs told her in 2016, seemingly at random, when she and Ventura were with him on a Malibu beach. Combs, she said, gave no explanation for the threat. A violent, criminal racket Bongolan's most important testimony — feeding the prosecution's argument that Combs stood at the head of a violent, criminal "racket" — described him picking her up and holding her over the railing of a 17th-story balcony in September 2016. "You know what the fuck you did!" she said Combs kept shouting as he hoisted her into the air. 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