Sean “Diddy” Combs has been hit with another lawsuit, this time by a female singer in his Bad Boy-backed bands Danity Kane and Diddy-Dirty Money, who claims she saw him beat up his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura.
Dawn Richard, who rose to fame via MTV and Diddy's 2004 reality competition show, “Making the Band 3,” sued Combs on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New York, raising allegations to corroborate some of those made by Ventura, whose explosive November lawsuit opened the floodgates to legal troubles for the embattled hip-hop mogul.
The “Damaged” singer, 41, accused her former boss of sexual assault, harassment and inhumane treatment, alleging Combs groped, fondled and grabbed her without her consent, falsely imprisoned her and forced her to stay at his various residences while depriving her and her bandmates of basic needs like adequate food and sleep.
According to the complaint, obtained Wednesday by The Times, Richard alleged that Combs “blatantly exploited” her as a singer and songwriter by withholding her earnings, stealing her copyrighted works and subjecting her to “years of inhumane working conditions.”
According to the complaint, Combs manipulated Richard with mantras that “submission to his depraved demands was necessary to advance her career,” which instilled in Richard “the belief that such abuse and exploitation was necessary for female artists to succeed in the music industry.”
“When Ms. Richard resisted Mr. Combs’ advances, Mr. Combs retaliated by denying her singing roles on songs, removing her from songs, refusing to allow her to sing in performances, and turning off her microphone during performances. The more Ms. Richard refused his advances, the more Mr. Combs’ vindictive behavior escalated,” the complaint states.
Richard named Combs, record executive Herve Pierre, Remote Productions, Sony Music Publishing and several companies under the Bad Boy and Combs brands, among others, as defendants. He seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages; a monetary award for mental pain, anguish and emotional suffering; punitive and exemplary damages; and payment of attorneys' fees.
Representatives for Combs did not immediately respond to The Times' requests for comment Wednesday.
Richards alleged in the lawsuit that she witnessed Combs physically abusing and brutally beating Ventura “on numerous occasions” and said the rapper and producer threatened her when she intervened.
“Mr. Combs’ eponymous temperament frequently manifested itself in physical violence,” his attorneys Lisa Bloom and Arick Fudali argued in the complaint, alleging that Combs “regularly threw objects in fits of rage,” often hurling items such as cell phones, laptops, food and study equipment across the room or at people. His “persistent abuse” included strangling and choking Ventura, hitting her with his hands and objects, slapping her, punching her and throwing objects at her, including a scalding frying pan, the attorneys said.
“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 black people disappear’ and ‘I wipe people out.’” On one occasion, after she alleged she saw Diddy throw a pan of boiling eggs at Ventura, Richard said he told her, “I’m giving you an opportunity, if you want to take advantage of it, you’re going to 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 “crying and with visible facial injuries, including a lacerated lip” and that she later witnessed Combs and other men having sex with his female assistant in a hotel pool in Glasgow.
Over the past year, allegations of sexual assault, sex trafficking and abuse have surfaced in several lawsuits against Combs, including those filed by Ventura, producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones and former model Crystal McKinney. Richard’s suit also referenced sordid allegations of sex trafficking at Combs’ mansions, which appeared to match some that likely led to raids on 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 plane to his home in New York for an after-party. She recalled seeing “large quantities of illegal drugs” being openly consumed and believed Combs had arranged for dozens of young women and girls, some of whom appeared to be 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 states. “Ms. Richard believed her presence at the party was a test to see if Mr. Combs could trust her.”
Dawn Richard, left, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Kalenna Harper of the band Diddy-Dirty Money arrive at the 2011 BET Awards in Los Angeles.
(Chris Pizzello/Associated Press)
Richard also said in the lawsuit that during auditions for “Making the Band,” she was subjected to verbal abuse by Combs, who allegedly spoke to female contestants “in a hostile and condescending manner” and made derogatory gender-based comments, such as calling female contestants “fat,” “ugly,” “bitches” and “sluts.” She said she felt threatened and intimidated by his “blatant disdain.”
Combs “would stay awake for extended periods of time,” she said, because he was allegedly drugged, demanding continuous access to the members of Danity Kane to record or rehearse for 36- to 48-hour periods 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,” weighing just 100 pounds.
She also claimed that Combs would often butt in when she was changing clothes, touch her naked body and slap her buttocks.
In December 2010, as Diddy-Dirty Money was preparing for a performance on “Saturday Night Live,” Combs was charged with assault and false imprisonment. She claimed Combs publicly berated her and bandmate Kalenna Harper and “raised his arm and threw his fist in her face,” but did not hit her when Richard asked him to stop. Instead, her bodyguard grabbed her and escorted her and her bandmate to 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, according to the lawsuit, she was able to call her father on Harper's cell phone, and he traveled from Baltimore to New York to free her. When Frank Richard, former singer and drummer for the funk/soul band Chocolate Milk, confronted Combs and threatened to report him to the police, Combs allegedly told him to think about his daughter's career.
