Topline
The Los Angeles County Attorney’s Office said it is aware of a widely circulated video depicting rapper and hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs attacking his former girlfriend in a hotel room in 2016, calling the footage “extremely disturbing,” but says it it “would be unable to charge” Combs, who already faces a slew of allegations over sexual abuse, rape and trafficking.
Officials in California said they are “aware” of hotel footage released this week showing rapper ... [+]
Key Facts
The County District Attorney’s Office said it is “aware of the video” in a late-night statement posted on Instagram, calling the images “difficult to watch.”
But the office said it is “unable to charge” Combs because the apparent attack “occurred beyond the timeline where a crime of assault can be prosecuted.”
California’s statute of limitations for assault is one year for simple assault, or three years for felony aggravated assault charges.
The statement comes on the heels of a Friday CNN report containing a March 2016 surveillance video that appeared to show Combs grab his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and toss her to the ground before kicking her in the hallway of Los Angeles’ since-closed InterContinental Hotel.
That footage was verified by CNN based on images of the hotel’s hallways, while Ventura’s attorney Douglas Wigdor called the video “gut-wrenching” in a statement to the outlet (Combs’ attorney Benjamin Brafman did not immediately respond to Forbes’ inquiry).
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Key Background
Combs, a three-time Grammy winner, faces lawsuits from multiple women over alleged sexual abuse, sex trafficking across state lines and rape. Ventura, a singer herself, filed one of those lawsuits in New York last November, accusing Combs of raping and assaulting her, as well as specific allegations of kicking, stomping and beating her, and taking her to hotels nationwide where he would allegedly force her into sexual acts with male sex workers while he watched. According to the suit, Combs became “extremely intoxicated” in a March 2016 incident at the InterContinental Hotel, beating Ventura and giving her a black eye. After she tried to escape, Ventura alleges Combs grabbed her in the hallway and threw “glass vases” at her as she escaped into an elevator and ultimately to the hotel lobby. Ventura’s lawsuit also came just weeks before the expiration of New York’s Adult Survivors Act, a law allowing victims of sexual abuse to skirt statute of limitations restrictions to file a suit against their accuser. Combs settled that suit for an undisclosed amount.
Tangent
Combs, previously known as Puffy, Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, has also been accused of raping and sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl in a separate lawsuit filed in December. That suit, filed by an unnamed plaintiff who also lists his music company Bad Boy Entertainment and its former president Harve Pierre as defendants, alleges Combs and Pierre “gang raped” the plaintiff after flying her from Detroit to New York City. Another plaintiff named Joie Dickerson-Neal accused Combs of drugging her, sexually assaulting her and recording the assault during a 1991 incident, according to a lawsuit filed in November.
Surprising Fact
Federal Homeland Security Investigations agents raided Combs’ luxury homes in South Florida and Los Angeles in March. Federal officials said the raids were part of an “ongoing investigation,” at the time, declining to provide further details, though sources told multiple outlets the raids were the result of an investigation into sex trafficking allegations stemming from a search warrant from the Southern District of New York. Combs’ attorney Aaron Dyer shot back at the raids as an “unprecedented ambush” and an “excessive show of force and hostility,” adding that Combs cooperated with authorities. Combs has not been formally charged in connection with the raids.
