Sean “Diddy” Combs has been hit with yet another lawsuit, this time by a singer from his Bad Boy-backed music groups Danity Kane and Diddy-Dirty Money who says she witnessed him beating ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura.
Dawn Richard, who rose to fame through MTV and Diddy’s 2004 reality competition “Making the Band 3,” sued Combs Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New York, putting forth allegations to corroborate some of those made by Ventura, whose bombshell November lawsuit opened the floodgates on legal woes for the embattled hip-hop mogul.
The “Damaged” singer, 41, accused her former boss of sexual assault, harassment and inhumane treatment, alleging that Combs groped, caressed and grabbed her without her consent, falsely imprisoned her and forced her to remain at his various residences while depriving her and her bandmates of basic needs such as adequate food and sleep.
According to the complaint, obtained Wednesday by The Times, Richard alleged that Combs “flagrantly exploited” her as a singer and writer by withholding her earnings, stealing her copyrighted works and subjecting her to “years of inhumane working conditions.”
Combs, the complaint said, manipulated Richard with mantras that “submission to his depraved demands was necessary for career advancement,” which instilled in Richard “the belief that such abuse and exploitation were required for female artists to succeed in the music industry.”
“When Ms. Richard resisted Mr. Combs’ advances, Mr. Combs retaliated by denying her singing parts in songs, removing her from songs, refusing to allow her to sing in performances, and turning her microphone off during performances. The more Ms. Richard rebuffed his advances, the more Mr. Combs’ retaliatory behavior increased,” the complaint said.
Richard named Combs, record executive Herve Pierre, Remote Productions, Sony Music Publishing and several Bad Boy- and Combs-branded businesses, among others, as defendants. She wants a jury trial and unspecified compensatory damages; a financial judgment for mental pain, anguish and emotional distress; punitive and exemplary damages, and payment of legal fees.
Representatives for Combs did not immediately respond Wednesday to The Times’ requests for comment.
Richards alleged in the lawsuit that she witnessed Combs physically abusing and brutally beating Ventura “on numerous occasions” and said she was threatened by the rapper-producer when she intervened.
“Mr. Combs’ namesake temper frequently manifested in physical violence,” her attorneys Lisa Bloom and Arick Fudali argued in the complaint, alleging that Combs “regularly hurled objects in fits of rage,” often throwing items such as mobile phones, laptops, food and studio equipment across the room or at people. His “persistent abuse” included choking and strangling Ventura, striking her with his hands and with objects, slapping her, punching her, and throwing items at her, including a scalding hot pan, the attorneys alleged.
“Mr. Combs learned of her efforts to help Ms. Ventura and became enraged, threatening Ms. Richard’s life with statements such as ‘you want to die today,’ ‘I make n— go missing’ and ‘I end people.’” On one occasion, after she alleged to have seen Diddy throw a pan of scalding eggs at Ventura, Richard said he told her, “I’m giving you an opportunity, if you want to make it you’ll shut your mouth … if you say anything, there will be consequences.”
She also said she witnessed his late ex Kim Porter, the mother of three of his children, leave his recording studio “in tears with visible facial injuries including a lacerated lip” and later witnessed Combs and several other males all having sex with his female assistant at a hotel pool in Glasgow.
Allegations of sexual assault, sex trafficking and abuse have surfaced in a number of lawsuits against Combs over the past year, including those brought by Ventura, producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones and former model Crystal McKinney. Richard’s lawsuit also made references to sordid allegations of sex trafficking at Combs’ mansions, which appeared to align with some that likely led to bicoastal raids of Combs’ homes in March.
In November 2009, after the Soul Train Awards in Atlanta, Richard said in the lawsuit that Combs flew her and others on a private jet to his house in New York for an after-party. She recalled seeing “copious amounts of illegal drugs” being openly consumed and believed that Combs had arranged for dozens of young women and girls — some of whom appeared underage — to be transported to the party where they were given drugs and alcohol.
“Many of them appeared lethargic or passed out while Mr. Combs and his guests performed sexual acts on them,” the complaint said. “Ms. Richard believed that her presence at the party was a test to see whether Mr. Combs could trust her.”
Richard also said in the suit that during auditions for “Making the Band,” she was subjected to verbal abuse by Combs, who allegedly spoke to the female contestants in “a hostile, condescending manner” and made disparaging gender-based comments, such as calling contestants “fat,” “ugly,” “bitches” and “hoes.” She said she felt threatened and intimidated by his “blatant disdain.”
Combs “would regularly be awake for prolonged periods of time,” she said, because he allegedly was high on drugs, demanding continuous access to the members of Danity Kane to record or rehearse for 36- to 48-hour stretches without breaks and forcing the women to choose between eating and sleeping. The 5-foot-4 singer said she lost a significant amount of weight during those “extreme conditions” and weighed only 100 pounds at one point.
She also claimed that Combs would often intrude when she was changing clothes and grope her bare body and smack her buttocks.
She accused Combs of assault and false imprisonment in December 2010 while Diddy-Dirty Money was preparing for a performance on “Saturday Night Live.” She alleged that Combs publicly berated her and her bandmate Kalenna Harper and “raised his arm, and swung his fist toward her face” but did not strike her when Richard asked him to stop. Instead, his bodyguard allegedly grabbed her and escorted her and her bandmate into a Bad Boy Records Bentley with heavily tinted windows and no interior door handles where she was locked in for two hours “with no way to escape.”
Eventually, the lawsuit said, she was able to call her father on Harper’s cellphone, and he traveled from Baltimore to New York to free her. When Frank Richard — a former singer and drummer with the funk/soul band Chocolate Milk — confronted Combs and threatened to report him to police, Combs allegedly told him to think about his daughter’s career.
