Diddy could have avoided public downfall by settling Cassie lawsuit privately, says report
Sean Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges that he coerced and abused women for years with the aid of a network of associates and employees
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Sean “Diddy” Combs reportedly refused a chance to settle singer Cassie Ventura’s bombshell rape and abuse lawsuit against him before she went public, which led to the explosion of the criminal case against the music mogul.
The claim was made on Law & Crime’s The Rise and Fall of Diddy, a three-episode podcast series that is scheduled to air on December 4 exploring the fallout from Combs’s decision.
In the series, attorney Donte Mills, who is presented on the doc as a legal insider with intimate knowledge of the case, claimed Ventura approached Combs to settle the lawsuit privately, according to a clip obtained by the Guardian.
“She came to him before she filed [any] lawsuit and said, ‘I believed I was wronged by you’ and she gave him an opportunity to settle the case before she brought [a] lawsuit,” he said.
“I know that both Sean Combs’s attorneys and Cassie’s attorneys were in conversation, in talks, to see if they can resolve the lawsuit, but they were not able to and those settlement negotiations fell through.”
It all began when Ventura filed a lawsuit against Combs just hours before the expiration of New York’s Adult Survivors Act in late November 2023. The suit claimed he raped her and abused her physically, mentally and emotionally.
He agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of money to settle Ventura’s claims out of court but never admitted any wrongdoing.
Months later, in May 2024, CNN released a hotel security camera video showing Combs beating Ventura in 2016, exposing his denials that he had done anything wrong as lies, the Guardian reported.
In the months since Ventura’s lawsuit, multiple accusers have come forward with allegations against Combs.
He was arrested in September on sex trafficking and racketeering charges with federal prosecutors alleging that he and his associates threatened, abused and coerced women and others around him “to fulfill his sexual desires” – which allegedly included forcing victims into engaging in recorded sexual activity which he referred to as “Freak Offs.”
Federal agents with US Homeland Security raided two of the rapper’s houses in Los Angeles and Miami on March 25 as part of an investigation into the allegations brought against him.
“I truly believe the downfall of Sean Combs … began [with] the Cassie Ventura lawsuit,” Mills says on the series.
Combs, 55, who founded Bad Boy Records, has pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges that he coerced and abused women for years with the aid of a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
The Independent has reached out to Combs’s team for comment.
On November 27, he appeared in federal court in New York where his lawyers attempted to secure his release on a $50m bond, and a move from a prison cell to a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, saying that he would be placed under “significant” restrictions while he prepared for his trial.
But Federal judge Arun Subramanian denied Combs bail for a third time, describing him as a “serious risk” for witness tampering.
Prosecutors had previously alleged that Combs tried to reach out to prospective witnesses and influence public opinion while in jail waiting for his case to be resolved.
Combs will remain in the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn.
His trial is currently scheduled to begin on May 5.