Sean 'Diddy' Combs threatened to send humiliating sex videos of Cassie to her parents' employers, celebrity stylist testifies
Published in News & Features
NEW YORK — A celebrity stylist who dressed Sean “Diddy” Combs for a decade on Wednesday said he saw the hip-hop mogul ferociously beat Casandra Ventura and threaten to spam her parents’ employers with videos of her having sex with strangers.
Deonte’ Nash, hired as an intern by Combs in 2008 after responding to a Craigslist ad, corroborated testimony by Ventura, known as Cassie, shedding more light on Combs’ violent wrath and blackmail threats.
The soft-spoken Nash said he was victim of Combs’ frequent and unpredictable outbursts and that when they were targeted toward Ventura, the Bad Boy Records co-founder would say things like “he would beat her a–, that he wouldn’t put her music out, that he would get her parents fired from their jobs and he would send her sex tapes to their jobs — he would start there.”
Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey in Manhattan Federal Court, the stylist, who also dressed Ventura, said the controlling Combs kept his much younger girlfriend on an impossibly tight rein — having the final say on how she appeared in public — and frequently disparaged her in front of his associates as a “b—h,” “an outright ho” and other misogynistic slurs.
Nash brought into sharper focus the power imbalance between Combs and Ventura, as alleged by prosecutors, and how he coerced her into degrading sexual performances with male performers found on the internet, encounters he dubbed “freakoffs” and which his lawyers have sought to frame as consensual.
The stylist described seeing Ventura with black eyes, bruising on her arms and legs, and several violent attacks that stood out in his mind, including one in which Combs continued beating Ventura as she bled from hitting her head off a bed frame. He said a “panicked” Combs ended up having one of his bodyguards take Ventura to a plastic surgeon to address the head wound.
On one occasion, he said Combs had instilled so much fear in the “Me & U” singer that she almost sought to evade him by climbing down from a hotel balcony.
Nash said Combs sought to isolate Ventura from her family, saying he was her only protector and calling her brother a “b—h.” He said that when they went out to events, he’d become possessive if she talked to other people.
In one account Nash recounted in court, he said Combs followed him and Ventura and made them pull over on the side of the road when he issued the threat about sending videos of her in humiliating sex acts with strangers to her parents’ places of work and on the internet.
“I told her, I said, ‘Well, girl, if he wants to release the sex tapes then let him … he’s on them, too,” the stylist said.
Nash said Ventura then told him that Combs wasn’t on the videos — that he had been taping her with other men.
Asked by Comey what Ventura expressed about participating in the sessions, Nash said “that she didn’t want to.” He later described Ventura expressing that she didn’t want to go to a freak-off, as Combs demanded, on her 29th birthday.
Nash said he was a close friend to Ventura and remains so, having texted her Tuesday to congratulate her on the birth of her third child. He said he had feared Combs and the repercussions of reporting his behavior to cops, with his paranoia so extreme that he usually kept $1,000 in cash on him to hide from Combs in hotels under an alias.
On cross-examination, Combs’ attorney, Xavier Donaldson, elicited answers from Nash about recording labels having an interest in how their artists looked. The stylist also acknowledged Combs launched his professional career and said he harbored no ill will toward him, having stopped working for Combs in 2018, the same year he split with Ventura.
Jurors heard extensive testimony from Ventura about being violently abused and sexually exploited throughout their tumultuous 11-year relationship and being under 24-hour surveillance by Combs and his crew. They are yet to hear from alleged victims Jane and Mia, which are pseudonyms, who are respectively expected to testify about being forced into freak-offs and sexually assaulted.
Combs is accused of operating a criminal enterprise to help facilitate his crime-ridden lifestyle and sordid sexual desires from 2004 to 2024. Prosecutors allege his employees engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, bribery, obstruction of justice, kidnapping and arson.
The 55-year-old has pleaded not guilty to counts including sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transporting individuals for prostitution and could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty.
Outside of his criminal case, Combs has faced around 70 lawsuits — brought by women and men — accusing him of a range of sexual misconduct. Allegations against him exploded into public view when Ventura brought suit in late 2023. Jurors have heard Combs settled that case for $20 million in just 24 hours. The feds then began investigating him.
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