The Rise and Fall of Diddy - Tipping Point: 2

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

When Cassandra Ventura filed a lawsuit under the New York Survivors Act, the allegations against Sean "Diddy" Combs sent shockwaves through the music industry. But her claims were just the beginning. As one lawsuit led to another, a web of accusations emerged—spanning from abuse and trafficking to digital evidence that would blow the case wide open.Listen to The Rise & Fall of Diddy exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today by visiting www.wondery.com/shows/the-rise-and-fall-of-diddy--Sean Combs’ trial is currently slated for May 2025 and wherever this story goes, Law&Crime will be there. Follow The Rise & Fall of Diddy page and stay subscribed to be the first to know when new episodes drop.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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All individuals mentioned are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Please listen with care. Sean Diddy Combs has always been a larger than life personality, hip hop's wealthiest mogul and a cultural icon. But in 2023, the empire he built began to crumble lawsuits and criminal investigations on Earth, a dark side of the man

once celebrated for his golden touch. The unraveling began with a single lawsuit filed by Cassandra Cassie Ventura under the New York survivors act. The allegations were explosive. In her civil lawsuit, Cassie said that she was the victim of abuse sexual assault and rape at the hands of did he. She's alleging essentially that this was one big ongoing criminal enterprise.

Once she filed her lawsuit that was the catalyst to this entire investigation and opened up the floodgates of other people actually filing lawsuits having to deal with Sean Combs. I'm Jesse Weber and this is the Rise and Fall of Diddy. Turns out Cassie's allegations weren't the first time Diddy's name was associated with scandal. In 2018, during an unrelated interrogation in Miami, a man named Jonathan Odey made claims that seemed unbelievable at the time. Do you know Sean Combs?

Puff Daddy? Yeah. Pete Diddy, whatever you call him. So Jonathan Odey, for those who don't know the person, is a sex worker, stripper, porn star, and in 2018 he was arrested for shooting, basically shooting up Donald Trump's Miami golf course. And you see video of it, it's crazy, he gets arrested and interrogated, and during the interrogation, he says at the time,

which sounds completely outlandish, that he was, and he does like the kind of air quotes, a sex slave to Diddy and his girlfriend Cassie, that Sean Combs would masturbate to him having sex with his girlfriend Cassie. He also then goes on to say that Rick Ross, as well as DJ Khaled and Sean Combs are all gay. And so you've got to remember this,

in the context of 2018, the person who just shot up Donald Trump's golf course is saying that all these major celebrities are gay and that he's some kind of just like low profile stripper, porn star, is a sex slave to Sean Combs. At the time, it sounds absolutely ridiculous. I had sex with Cassie and Sean. I had like 15 encounters and I heard lots of business.

I was like a sex slave, okay? For them, that's what I was. That's all. But in the wake of Cassie's claims, Odie's allegations, previously deemed ludicrous, were revisited in a new light. Jonathan Odie had beef with Trump, with Obama, and he went to one of Trump's properties and got in a shootout with police.

So he's facing many years in prison, and he's said a lot of crazy things. So people didn't believe him when he said that he was involved with drug-fueled sex parties with Diddy. But now his words are being revisited because it looks like he may have been telling the truth. Cassie's lawsuit was settled within 24 hours, but it set off a chain reaction. And by Saturday, everybody knew that he paid money for that lawsuit to go away and that was followed with tens of other people saying all I have to do is follow

lawsuit and he will give me a check. So they file lawsuits and a bunch of lawsuits including Rodney Jones. In February 2024 music producer Rodney little Rod Jones filed a lawsuit against Sean Diddy combs alleging a series of serious offenses during their professional relationship from September 2022 to November 2023. Jones claim that while working on did he's album the love

album off the grid. He was subjected to sexual harassment drugging and threats. He was courageous enough to try to take advantage of the new law to file his lawsuit within the new statute of limitations and try to get some justice for himself. Now, he says he is destitute, he is fearful for his life, he can't travel without a mask on, without security. He's been blackballed, according to him, within the music industry all because of Diddy. If any part of these allegations are

true, then this is really serious. The lawsuit detailed that Jones was coerced into procuring sex workers for Diddy's events. He also accused Diddy of forcing him to carry and distribute drugs, including pink cocaine, a combination of ecstasy and cocaine. Jones further alleged that Diddy boasted about past violent incidents, such as the 1999 nightclub shooting involving Jennifer Lopez, and claimed to have bribed jurors during that trial. And that's not all. He goes into a lot of detail about the sex trafficking, the violence, the threats, stealing money from Little Rod.

And he was just thrown aside by Diddy as just a kook, as someone who's a hanger on, someone trying to get money. But he provides corroboration to Cassie and others. But just what were those others alleging. Those lawsuits were saying I was a part of this process where he recruited people to come to parties and at those parties there were illicit things happening and things that I

did not want to happen to me happened I was drugged and I will wake up in the morning and things will be done to me or I would be naked in a bed with other people. And I never gave consent because I was drugged and wasn't aware. The claims were nothing short of horrific. And they were piling up not just against Diddy, but one of his sons to a young woman filed a lawsuit against Christian Combs. In April 2024, Christian King Combs, Diddy's third son,

faced his own serious legal allegations. A lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Grace O'Markey accused Christian of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and infliction of emotional distress. The incident allegedly occurred in late December 2022 aboard a yacht chartered by Sean Combs. Omarkey, employed as a stewardess, claimed that Christian, then 24, boarded the yacht in a heavily intoxicated state and pressured her into consuming tequila, which she suspected was laced with drugs.

She further alleged that he groped her and attempted to force her into non-consensual sexual acts. That's very similar to the situation that's going on with Sean Combs, and it really points to the lifestyle that they were living and the expectations they had for anyone that was in their space. She was someone who was hired to be a worker on that boat. So it's not like she volunteered to participate in a certain lifestyle or was someone coming to a party that she knew what would happen at the party.

She thought she was doing a job. The lawsuit also laid allegations against Diddy, asserting that he created an environment that enabled the alleged assault and subsequently attempted to cover it up. Omarkey claimed that after reporting the incident to the yacht's captain, no meaningful action was taken and she was eventually terminated from her position. In response, Aaron Dyer, attorney for both Sean and Christian Combs, dismissed the allegations as lewd and meritless, stating plans to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. And this dismissive attitude extended beyond their legal representation.

As more civil lawsuits were filed among Diddy's peers, silence spoke louder than words. In terms of the reaction to some of these civil suits, members of the music community, people in the recording industry as a whole just not even addressing it, ignoring it, pretending that it didn't happen, sometimes it's actually worse than denying that they're involved, denying that any of this happened. These rumors and these stories would come up, but just as almost quickly as it'd come up, they'd often fall by the wayside. I think a lot of people looked the other way or rumors and these stories would come up, but just as almost quickly as it'd come up, they'd often fall by the wayside.

I think a lot of people looked the other way or just thought these stories are way too crazy to be true. But not all of them. Other celebrities, including model Nikki Heaton and Kat Williams took to social media and podcasts to share their own Diddy stories. We walk in and Connie and Diddy are already completely fucked up. And Diddy and Kanye, and there's three other men, and me, alone. I'm not in the industry anymore.

I'm not filing a lawsuit, so I'm not getting paid. I'm not looking for clout, because who gives a fuck about me? So how, why would I lie about this? Now I've had to turn down $50 million four times, just to protect my integrity, and that **** I was telling you about. Right, because P. Diddy be wanting to party.

And you gotta tell him no. You gotta tell him no. As more rumors and civil suits made headlines in the wake of Cassie's bombshell lawsuit, Diddy's legal team consistently denied all allegations, labeling them as fabrications aimed at financial gain. How could any of this be proven? Thus far, prosecutors could find no hard evidence

to corroborate any of these claims. But it turns out Rodney Jones said there was proof. In Rodney Jones' civil lawsuit, he insinuates that there's videos of all of this. In Jones' lawsuit, he went so far as to claim that Diddy had hidden cameras in every room of his homes and that he had, quote, compromising footage of every person who has attended his parties.

Investigators finally had something tangible to look for. The civil lawsuits meant everything for the ultimate criminal investigation of Diddy. Without the civil lawsuits, I don't think the feds would have gotten involved. They wouldn't have known about this. And the investigators began by speaking to the people who brought the civil lawsuits and asking them, what's your proof? Where's the evidence that you have that this allegation actually happened? And they heard from a lot of these people

that everything should be on video because a lot of Sean Combs parties, his house, there's video cameras, and he's known to record almost everything. So once they followed that up and got the information that there was video evidence of these activities, and also got some more information from these accusers saying, well, here's how you get to the back room where some of this illegal stuff

happened. Yes, everybody came to a party. That party was in the main area of the house. But if you go through this door, if you go through the study here, if you go through these stairs or this tunnel, here's where all of the illegal activity happened. And you will find separate video cameras, you will find chains and ropes and sex swings and things like that. They gave the federal investigators that type of information. It was time to bring in backup.

Homeland Security was involved because you're talking about sex trafficking where people were being taken across state lines for the purposes of performing sexual acts for other people. So that formed the investigative team. And they wasted no time. Once the investigative team got this information, they decided to do raids by coastal on Sean Combs main two houses so that he would not get one house raided and be able to clean out the other one. They said we're going to go into both houses at the same time. We're gonna use the information we got about the back entrances, the back stairs, these hidden rooms,

and we're gonna verify the information we received from these people bringing the civil lawsuits. And if we can, then we move forward with our investigation. Lil Rod's intel was the tipping point that brought everything crashing down. He was the one that said in February when he filed that first lawsuit that there are tapes in Diddy's homes in LA and Miami. And then lo and behold, March 25th, just weeks after Rodney Jones' lawsuit, they go and search those exact same homes.

On March 25th, federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security executed search warrants at Diddy's residences in both Los Angeles and Miami. They wanted to go into both of his main homes at the same time and get whatever information they could. What they were investigating was human trafficking, sexual assault, and solicitation and distribution of illegal narcotics and firearms. While the raids appeared urgent and swift on our TV and phone screens, this was an operation organized

with some serious tact. A raid of this magnitude can take anywhere from four to two weeks to plan, sometimes even longer. It just depends on what you're doing. I have served surreptitious entry warrants, which is not what this is, but that's when someone's not home and you break in. Those took probably two months to plan

because the thing is we are obviously looking for something. We know that that's why we got a search warrant to begin with, but then you also have to look at the behavior of the people who are within those homes to figure out what is the safest time to serve that search warrant for everyone involved, to figure out on both coasts because we're dealing with a time zone difference

with Florida and then California, and then your tactical teams. You don't wanna be hurting anyone in the neighborhood. You also don't wanna be hurting whomever the subject of that search warrant may be. That's never the intent of those. And so that takes a lot of time, a lot of conference calls, a lot of Zoom calls, and a lot of coordination.

They didn't just get this search warrant signed, you know, the night before. This was something that they had planned for a while. When the fateful day arrived, here's how it went down. During the raid, dozens of agents went into both properties, searched the properties thoroughly. They used the information they received from the people that was telling them about these parties in the back rooms to make sure that they hit every single secret entrance or room,

looking for any illegal activity, looking for anything that would point to a legal activity that was happening on the properties. You know, his home was torn up, couches sort of pulled apart, walls pulled apart. The raids ignited a media frenzy, capturing global attention. News outlets provided extensive coverage with aerial footage showcasing armed agents at Combs' Holme Hills mansion and his Miami Star Island property. Social media platforms buzzed with discussions

as users shared footage and debated the implications of the raids and what investigators could possibly be looking for. They were absolutely looking for weapons. They were looking for digital evidence. And they were probably looking for any other kind of recording things, so cameras and those kinds of things that were at his home. In response, Diddy's legal team criticized the raids,

describing them as an unprecedented ambush and a gross use of military-level force. They handcuffed his children, and the investigators did that because you just never know what the actions of someone would be in that standard procedure during the rape process We know diddy is armed We know that he has bodyguards all of that information is what also calls the federal government to go in there in a very

Tactical way. I know they've gotten some flack for that, but that was actually the appropriate thing to do Attorneys for diddy emphasized his cooperation with authorities and denied any wrongdoing. But the evidence found that day said otherwise. Here's what they found. Firearms, three AR-15 rifles with defaced serial numbers raising concerns about illegal weapon possession. Narcotics, various drugs including ketamine, ecstasy, and gamma

hydroxybutyrate, GHB, substances often associated with recreational use and potential misuse, personal lubricants, over a thousand bottles of baby oil, items that prosecutors suggested were linked to alleged freak-off parties involving sexual activities, multiple electronic devices such as computers and smartphones. Those initial raids were the beginning of the end. They wanted to make sure that what the people were telling them was accurate and that they would be able to find evidence to back it up.

And of course they did. But it was the digital evidence that really got people talking was they got a hold of the digital evidence they started processing it and they started looking for the individuals that were on the videos and they were able to take statements indicating that they were being held against their will and they were participating in these acts against their will.

You see the best evidence is anything having to do with surveillance or video footage because it's no longer about did the act take place. Instead, you're dealing with probably, you know, why it took place. People lie, but video does not. And if he's on these tapes that shows him involved with the sex acts, perhaps involved with violence as a victim or a perpetrator, yes, that could be used against Diddy. If the lawsuits hadn't yet shifted the public's perception of Diddy, the raids certainly did. His peers seem to change their tune too.

For myself and I think a lot of other people in this industry, I mean, it's all a shock. Everybody is still trying to digest it and still trying to understand it. And even though, you know, there's still allegations and it's not anything factual yet, it's hurtful and it's confusing to a lot of people. You heard Cassie, through a representative, speak along the lines of saying, hopefully this will lead to justice. The hope was that criminal charges could flow from this. Audrey O'Day from Danny Kane came out in support of the raid based on what Cassian said. Usher Raymond took down his ex account because there were a lot of connections and videos

with Sean Combs on there and he wanted to separate himself. Yet Usher responded to the rumors once his account was restored. Account got hacked and damn, y'all ran with it. You see a lot of celebrities trying to scrub their pages of those connections. People started to either silently distance themselves or come out and say, I hope this leads to justice. You had some people like 50 Cent really pushing the issue and saying, I told you so. This is who I told you he was.

These behaviors and things with drugs and all the stuff that's going on, pills, drinking, it can make this man into a monster. And that's what it did, bro. Diddy had a lot of fans and a lot of hangers on, and now he's radioactive. People knew.

They saw things. But because of this culture of silence, when it comes to people with power and money, they're not speaking out as loud as they should be. But I think the tides are changing. People are speaking out loud, and they're finally being heard. Another way people started speaking out?

More lawsuits. Lawsuits after the raid corroborated what Cassie was saying, where you had other women who alleged that they were victimized by Diddy. Similar MO, where he allegedly lured them with a false sense of safety to be part of his enterprise, and then allegedly started to grope them and drug them and threaten them. And you had these women who had similar stories and that too lends credibility to what Cassie was saying, to what Little Rod was saying, to even what Jonathan Odey is saying.

The first of three lawsuits came two months after the raids. Model Crystal McKinney claimed Combs sexually assaulted and drugged her at his studio back in 2003 and then had her blackballed from the industry. She claimed quote following the assault plaintiffs modeling opportunities quickly began to dwindle and then evaporated entirely. Plaintiff has also experienced alcohol and drug addiction as she attempted to cope with the emotional trauma of being assaulted Next April lampros filed a suit alleging combs assaulted her four times Starting when she was just a college student her suit alleged quote

She felt that if she disobeyed him he would take away her dreams of pursuing a career in his world Mr Combs would also threaten to blacklist her in the industry if she tried to mess with him in any way. Plaintiff sustained and will continue to sustain monetary damages, physical injury, pain and suffering and serious psychological and emotional distress. Then, a few months later, another suit from Dawn Richard of Danity Kane, a group Diddy managed.

She made similar allegations to Cassie and LaRod and everyone else who's made these allegations against Diddy. But there was even more. Dawn Richard alleged that there were minors who were victims here. And if that's not enough of a bombshell. What's extra powerful though is that she apparently was a witness to the violence allegedly committed against Cassie. Saying that she saw did he strike Cassie. She saw him throw a scalding skillet with eggs in it at Cassie. So this is part of the elements of sex trafficking. You have to show force, fraud, or coercion. Well, this is part of the elements of sex trafficking.

You have to show force, fraud, or coercion. Well, this is force. But again, this would require some physical evidence. Dawn may have alleged she'd seen this egregious behavior, but she didn't have any way to prove it. Then, in May 2024, a previously unseen surveillance video from 2016 surfaced, depicting Diddy physically assaulting his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel. The footage, obtained and released by CNN, shows Combs, clad only in a towel, chasing

Cassie down the hallway as she attempts to enter an elevator. He grabs her, throws her to the ground, kicks her and drags her across the floor. When they saw that video of her in the hotel and how did he beat her and kicked her in the face, he kicked her in the face. That really changed the energy around these allegations. And I think that really solidified, oh no, some of these things may be real. This video's release provided visual confirmation

of allegations Cassie had made in a November, 2023 lawsuit where she accused Combs of a decade long pattern of abuse, including physical violence and sexual misconduct. I think the video shocked the world and made people realize that she was telling the truth if there was any doubt of it before. Had that video not been released, I think that perhaps the feds may have been less likely to move forward because they were as shocked as anyone else, I'm sure. The public dissemination of the video intensified scrutiny on Combs, leading to widespread condemnation and renewed discussions about domestic violence in the entertainment industry.

In response, Combs issued a public apology. I was f***ed up. I mean, I hit rock bottom. But I make no excuses. My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I was disgusted then when I did it. I'm disgusted now. I'm so sorry. He had to apologize after the video came out, and I'm sure it led federal investigators

to think there's a lot more to it. The video corroborated what she was saying and made Diddy look like a liar. After both the shocking video and his subsequent apology went viral, in the summer of 2024, Diddy appeared to go radio silent. But behind the scenes, investigators were only turning up the heat. Diddy is really up against it. He thought he was above the law. He thought perhaps that he could intimidate people not to speak up.

And he was right, at least until now. By September 16, Diddy's decades above the law were finally up. Breaking news, music trailblazer Sean Combs, also known as P. Diddy, has been arrested by authorities in New York City on federal charges. He was taken into custody at the Park Hyatt Hotel this evening.

On the next episode of The Rise and Fall of Diddy, we get into the details of the indictment that shocked the world. I think the free coughs were the most shocking thing in the indictment. It's one thing to know that he had wild parties. But then the fact that Diddy filmed himself and filmed other shows that he didn't care about getting caught because he thought he would never get caught. This has been a Law and Crime Production.

I'm your host, Jesse Weber. Our executive producer is Jessica Lother. Our writer and producer is Cooper Mall. Our editor is Anna McClain. Additional writing and guestbooking by Lisa Fite and Julie Wheeler. Legal review and fact checking by Elizabeth Voulai. Key art design by Sean Panzera, and special thanks to our contributors, Dave Arenberg,

Brian Buckmeyer, Meena Lona, Dante Mills, Tracy Walder, and Bernarda Villalona. Follow Long Crimes, the rise and fall of Diddy on the Wondery app. You can listen to more episodes exclusively and ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify and get ad free access to more thrilling Long Crimes series like Karen and Sidebar with Jesse Weber. Start your free trial today.