When 6-foot-5, 315-pound all-league offensive tackle Jorge Gonzalez of Santa Paula High had to take a mandatory two-week break this summer under the Southern Section dead period rules, he didn’t just sit at home. He went to the wheat fields of Santa Barbara and earned money using a weed whacker eight hours a day so he could buy a car.
“My uniform turned green,” he said of his daily work in the fields.
The Santa Paula community is heavily involved in the agriculture business, and football coach Myke Morales said many of his players have worked in the fields.
Gonzalez is a three-year starter with a 3.8 grade-point average and made the trip to Ventura on Thursday for a Tri County League media day that also featured players from Agoura, Hueneme, Dos Pueblos, San Marcos and Fillmore.
Fillmore coach Charlie Weis and Santa Paula coach Myke Montoya talk about the 101st year for a rivalry that’s among the best in California. pic.twitter.com/9M87Bpet80
Morales and Fillmore’s Charles Weis discussed their 100-year-old rivalry game played at the end of each season. It’s unlike any other as far as uniting both communities.
“It’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Weis said. “It’s a community event. It’s what’s right is for high school football.”
Agoura is ready to welcome back quarterback Gavin Gray, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in the fourth game last season. He’ll have baseball standout Tyler Starling at receiver, plus the Chargers have running back George Hastings, who will become No. 7 on the roster.
Dos Pueblos returns all-league receiver Micah Barnhart.
Hueneme has high hopes for running back Jeremiah Alvarado.
San Marcos might have one of the best multi-sport athletes in the state in elite golfer Austin Downing, who’s also a kicker and plays baseball.
Fillmore will rely on four players who will be three-year starters — linebacker Carlos Cabral, receiver Mauricio Ocegueda, lineman Marcus Lechuga and lineman Genaro Villela.
All the coaches are preparing for possible disruptions because of wildfires and have had experiences in the past.
“Every year, we’re problem-solving,” Dos Pueblos coach AJ Pateras said. “We just navigate.”
The legal team for Sean “Diddy” Combs has moved to get the disgraced music mogul released from prison ahead of his Oct. 3 sentencing. Less than a month ago, Combs was acquitted of the most damning charges in his high-profile sex-trafficking case.
Combs’ defense attorneys on Tuesday filed a motion requesting the Bad Boy Records founder’s release, outlining the terms for his bail, including a $50-million bond and travel restrictions. The motion, reviewed by The Times, is addressed to Judge Arun Subramanian and claims “there are exceptional circumstances warranting a departure from mandatory detention and ensuring that Sean Combs is released.”
In the 12-page filing, Combs’ lawyers make the case for his pre-sentence release, including that he shouldn’t be jailed for his “swinger” lifestyle and that he faces “ongoing threats of violence” at the Metropolitan Detention Center.
The 55-year-old music star was cleared earlier this month of racketeering and sex trafficking but convicted on two counts of prostitution-related charges.
Combs was found guilty of violating the Mann Act by transporting male sex workers across state lines, but his attorneys argued that in similar convictions “the defendants were released pending sentencing.” Additionally, the filing puts a new spin on Combs’ relationships with ex-girlfriends Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and “Jane,” who went by a pseudonym. Each testified about the musician’s orgies known as “freak-offs” and made allegations about his violent behavior. The filing claims that the relationship Combs had with his exes was open, akin to swinging.
“In the the lifestyle he and other adults voluntarily chose, Mr. Combs would be called a swinger,” reads the motion, which later asserts that “Sean Combs should not be in jail for this conduct.”
Combs’ legal team insists in the motion that Combs “is not a risk of flight nor is he a danger to the community or to any specific people.” The motion also downplays the claims of domestic violence against Combs.
Notably, Combs was seen in security footage kicking and dragging Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel. The accuser identified as “Jane” had accused Combs of forced sex, physical violence and abuse.
Referring to earlier court proceedings, Combs’ attorneys note that the “defense admitted a history of domestic violence” but claimed in the motion that Combs struck “Jane” twice in June 2024 because she “provoked” him. The filing also says Combs enrolled in a domestic violence program prior to his arrest last year.
“As we said in court this jury gave [Combs] his life back, and he will not squander his second chance at life, nor would he do anything to further jeopardize his seven children not having a father, and four of his children not having a parent at all,” his defense team says in the motion, referring to the four children Combs shares with Kim Porter, who died in 2018.
According to the proposed bail package, Combs’ $50-million bond would be secured by his home in Miami, where he will live if released. Combs’ attorneys also say his travel would be limited to specific sites in Florida and New York for attorney meetings, and the airports required to travel between those destinations.
To ensure his release, Combs’ attorneys said he was open to the court adding more conditions — including house arrest, mental health treatment and substance abuse treatment — if deemed necessary.
Times editorial library director Cary Schneider contributed to this report
Seventh in a series of stories profiling top high school football players by position. Today, Tristan Phillips, Ventura linebacker.
It’s lunch time, and standout linebacker Tristan Phillips has arrived in his truck at a private training facility near Ventura High for a workout. When he starts his stretching exercises, you can’t miss his bulging biceps or the intense focus on his face.
“He’s obsessed with working to be the best possible version of himself,” coach Tim Garcia said.
At 6 feet 3 1/2 and 215 pounds, Phillips’ size alone makes him someone running backs and quarterbacks want to avoid. Add his work ethic to keep getting stronger, his instincts to figure out where the ball is going and his passion to finish plays, and you have a linebacker with all the qualities to be successful.
“I’m very obsessed with the process,” the 17-year-old said.
Last season as a junior, Phillips recorded 80 tackles, including nine for losses. At first, the recruiting process was slow, then came a point when he was getting constant phone calls and texts. He’s committed to Oregon and has offered a lesson to those just beginning to understand the changes taking place. He stressed it needs to be a “balancing act.”
“At first, it was hard to navigate through and frustrating when I wasn’t getting the attention I thought I deserved,” he said. “When I got a couple offers, I felt it was amazing. I realized how stressful it gets coaches calling you and texting you. It can be a lot for a 17-year-old kid.”
Phillips has been helped by the background of his father, Brett, who used to coach at Rio Mesa, Oxnard Pacifica and Channel Islands. His late grandfather was the principal and former coach at Rio Mesa. He has lived in Ventura all his life and has grown up with quarterback Derek Garcia. They’d carpooled since youth days, Phillips asking questions of Garcia’s dad hoping to prepare to play high school football.
“He’s always had support of his parents with understanding what athletics does for younger generation and to be productive on a daily basis,” Tim Garcia said. “Watching his growth as not just as an athlete but a human being is special. Tristan was always asking the right questions. ‘What’s going on with Ventura? What about this player? What do you think of this?’’ From an early age, he had his mind set what he wanted to do.”
Linebacker Tristan Phillips of Ventura prepares for a workout with a stretching exercise.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
So what makes people excited about Phillips as a linebacker?
“His ability to make plays directly at him and away from him are spectacular to watch,” Garcia said.
Said Phillips: “Whether blocking or hitting on defense, I want to make sure I’m putting you in the ground and you’re feeling it.”
Tristan Phillips of Ventura is one of the top returning linebackers in California.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
Much of Phillips’ preparation comes from his belief that magical things can happen in the weight room. During the spring, he was lifting in the morning, then in the afternoon, but also recognizing he needs time to recover and not to overdo it.
“On a football team, it all starts in the weight room,” he said. “You have to be sturdy, strong, fast, move side to side, keep yourself healthy. There’s a lot of things you can do in the weight room to prevent injury and improve.”
Phillips’ competitiveness comes through in workouts and executing little things, such as stretching. It’s all part of the process he embraces trying to get better every day.
“I’ll admit I’m a sore loser,” he said. “I put so much time into it. I know you’re not going to win every battle but just making the most of every opportunity really matters.”
Tuesday: Palos Verdes defensive back Jalen Flowers.
Linebackers to watch
Taven Epps, Tustin, 6-4, 225, Jr: Lots of talent and potential
Dash Fifita, Santa Margarita, 5-9, 190, Sr.: Arizona commit is All-Trinity League selection
Taylor Johnson, Cajon, 6-1, 200, Sr.: USC commit averaged 14 tackles last season
Isaiah Leilua, Servite, 6-0, 220, Jr.: Toughness and aggressiveness come through
Jonathan McKinley, Corona Centennial, 6-2, 225, Sr.: Cal commit makes plays
Samu Moala, Leuzinger, 6-4, 225, Sr.: Texas A&M commit will be used all over field
Matthew Muasau, St. John Bosco, 6-1, 225, Sr.: UCLA commit
Isaiah Phelps, Oxnard Pacifica, 6-1, 200, Jr.: Has quickness, instincts
When Lauren Hersh, the national director of the anti-sex trafficking activist group World Without Exploitation, heard Wednesday that Sean “Diddy” Combs was convicted only on the two least serious charges against him, she felt grief for his former partner Casandra Ventura and his other accusers.
“I think this is a travesty,” Hersh said. “It shows there is culturally a deep misunderstanding of what sex trafficking is and the complexity of coercion. So often in these cases, there’s an intertwining of horrific violence and affection.”
Hersh, the former chief of the sex trafficking unit at the Kings County district attorney’s office in Brooklyn, said that Combs’ verdict — guilty on two charges of transportation to engage in prostitution but acquitted on one for racketeering and two for sex trafficking — is a mixed message about Combs’ conduct. But it will likely be felt as a step backward for the movement to hold powerful men to account for alleged sex crimes.
In a cultural moment when other music stars like Marilyn Manson and Chris Brown have mounted successful comebacks after high-profile abuse investigations and lawsuits, Hersh worries the Diddy verdict may deter prosecutors from pursuing similar cases against powerful men and chill the MeToo movement’s ability to seek justice for abuse victims.
“It’s a huge setback, especially in this moment when the powerful have continuously operated with impunity,” Hersh said. “It sends a signal to victims that despite the MeToo movement, we’re still not there in believing victims and understanding the context of exploitation. But I’m hoping it’s a teachable moment to connect the dots with what trafficking is and understanding the complexity of coercion.”
The charges against Combs were not a referendum on whether he had abused Ventura or the myriad other women and men involved in his “freak-off” parties, where group sex and drug use intertwined into an allegedly decadent and violent culture around Combs.
Combs’ defense team freely admitted that his relationship with Ventura was violent, as seen in an infamous 2016 videotape of Combs beating Ventura in an elevator lobby at the InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles. Marc Agnifilo, one of Combs’ lawyers, said in closing arguments that Combs has a drug problem but described his relationship with Ventura as a “modern love story” in which the hip-hop mogul “owns the domestic violence” that plagued it.
“The defendant embraced the fact that he was a habitual drug user who regularly engaged in domestic abuse,” federal prosecutors wrote in a hearing about Combs’ possible bail terms.
The jury decided that Combs’ conduct, however reprehensible, did not amount beyond a reasonable doubt to a criminal racketeering organization or sex trafficking. Yet the case’s impact on movements within music and other industries to hold abusers to account is uncertain.
Many civil suits against the music mogul are still moving through court and could affect his depleted finances. Combs’ reputation has been thoroughly tainted by the lurid details of the trial and strong condemnations from his many accusers.
Still, for victim advocates, the verdict was a bitter disappointment.
Reactions within the music world were swift and despairing. “This makes me physically ill,” said Aubrey O’Day of Danity Kane, the band Diddy assembled on his popular reality TV show “Making the Band,” on social media. “Cassie probably feels so horrible. Ugh, I’m gonna vomit.”
“Cassie, I believe you. I love you. Your strength is a beacon for every survivor,” wrote singer Kesha, who in 2014 sued producer Dr. Luke, accusing him of assault. Kesha has frequently altered the lyrics of her hit single “TikTok” in performances to lambast Combs.
Even longtime Diddy antagonist 50 Cent seemed to acknowledge his partial victory. “Diddy beat the feds that boy a bad man,” 50 Cent wrote on Instagram, before referencing a famous mobster notorious for evading convictions. “Beat the RICO he the gay John Gotti.”
Mitchell Epner, a former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey who prosecuted numerous sex trafficking and involuntary servitude cases, said that despite some recent high-profile sex trafficking cases that ended in convictions, Combs’ charges were never going to be easy to prove.
“In recent years, we’ve seen prosecutions of Ghislaine Maxwell in the Jeffrey Epstein case, Keith Raniere of NXIVM and R. Kelly, where they are trafficking in order to feed the traffickers’ sexual desire,” Epner said. “But this indictment was all about Sean Combs sharing women with people he was paying. He wasn’t receiving money, he wanted to be a voyeur. That technically fits the definition of sex trafficking, but it wasn’t the primary evil Congress was thinking about.”
The hurdles for accusers to come forward with claims against powerful men, and for juries to discern between transgressive sexual relationships and criminally liable abuse beyond a reasonable doubt, make such cases difficult to prosecute.
In the absence of convictions, some recently accused artists have already mounted successful comebacks.
Shock-rocker Marilyn Manson had been under investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department since 2021, when several women accused him of rape and abuse including “Westworld” actor Evan Rachel Wood and “Game of Thrones” actor Esmé Bianco.
Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said in January that the statute of limitations had run out on Manson’s domestic violence allegations, and that prosecutors doubted they could prove rape charges.
“While we are unable to bring charges in this matter,” Hochman said in a statement then, “we recognize that the strong advocacy of the women involved has helped bring greater awareness to the challenges faced by survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault.”
Bianco told The Times that, “Within our toxic culture of victim blaming, a lack of understanding of coercive control, the complex nature of sexual assault within intimate partnerships, and statutes of limitations that do not support the realities of healing, prosecutions face an oftentimes insurmountable hurdle. Once again, our justice system has failed survivors.”
Manson has denied all claims against him. He has since released a new album and mounted successful tours.
Meanwhile, R&B singer Chris Brown was recently the subject of “Chris Brown: A History of Violence,” a 2024 documentary that shed new light on a 2022 lawsuit where a woman accused Brown of raping her on a yacht owned by Combs in 2020.
That lawsuit — one of many civil and criminal claims made against Brown over the years, beginning with the infamous 2009 incident in which he assaulted his then-girlfriend Rihanna — was dismissed. In 2020, Brown settled another sexual assault lawsuit regarding an alleged 2017 incident at the singer’s home. Brown currently faces criminal charges around a 2023 incident where he allegedly assaulted a music producer with a tequila bottle in a London nightclub.
Brown denied the claims in the documentary, and his attorneys called the film “defamatory.” He sued Warner Bros. Entertainment for $500 million. He is currently on a stadium tour that will stop at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood in September.
Combs, meanwhile, may still face a range of criminal and civil consequences. He could be sentenced from anywhere up to the maximum of 10 years apiece on each prostitution charge, or to a far lesser sentence. Some experts said it’s possible he may be sentenced to time served and walk away a free man soon.
Though it’s too soon to know what kind of future awaits Combs should he return to public life, it’s hard to imagine a return to the heights of influence that defined his ‘90s tenure at Bad Boy Entertainment, or his affable multimedia-mogul personality in the 2000s. A fate similar to the former hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons seems most likely — reputationally tarnished and culturally irrelevant.
Still, his supporters thronged outside the New York courtroom waving bottles of baby oil — an infamous detail of the trial — in a pseudo-ironic celebration of his acquittal on the most serious charges.
If Combs wants to ever return to music, he’ll have at least one ally in Ye, the embattled Nazi-supporting rapper who showed up in court to bolster Combs. Ye featured the incarcerated mogul on his song “Lonely Roads Still Go to Sunshine,” and released clothing featuring the logo of Combs’ old fashion label Sean John.
President Trump, another convicted felon and alleged sexual assailant who quickly returned to the heights of power, has said he is open to pardoning Combs. “It’s not a popularity contest,” he has said, regarding a Combs pardon. ”I would certainly look at the facts if I think somebody was mistreated.”
Jurors have reached a verdict on four of five counts against music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is on trial in a New York federal courtroom, accused of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation for prostitution.
The jury sent a note to the trial judge Tuesday afternoon stating they’d reached a verdict on several counts but were unable to reach a consensus on count one — racketeering. They will continue deliberating on that count in Manhattan starting Wednesday at 9 a.m.
Combs, 55, is charged under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as RICO, which requires a defendant to be part of an enterprise involved in at least two overt criminal acts out of 35 offenses listed by the government.
He is also charged on two counts each of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution in connection with two women — his former girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and a woman identified in court only as Jane, also a former girlfriend.
The jury has reached a unanimous verdict on the four counts tied to Ventura and Jane but not on the racketeering count. Their verdict is not yet known. As Tuesday’s deliberations concluded, Combs was seen praying in the courtroom and looking morose, according to the Associated Press.
The impending verdicts are the culmination of a celebrity legal drama that has generated global attention and offered a graphic and often violent glimpse into the life of one of the nation’s most powerful music figures and his near billion-dollar enterprise. Jurors heard from three women, two former girlfriends and a personal assistant, who described mob-family-style racketeering with coercion, kidnapping, threats and beatings done to cover up a pattern of sexual assaults, sex trafficking and prostitution over decades.
During the seven-week trial, prosecutors portrayed Combs and his associates as luring female victims, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship. Once he had gained their interest, Combs allegedly used force, threats of force, coercion and controlled substances to get them to engage in sex acts with male prostitutes while he occasionally watched in gatherings that Combs referred to as “freak-offs.”
On the stand, witnesses testified that Combs gave the women ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to “keep them obedient and compliant” during the performances.
Jurors deliberated for more than 12 hours before reaching verdicts on several of the counts against Combs.
The racketeering charge alleged Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment was like a mob family and criminal enterprise that threatened and abused women and utilized members of his enterprise to engage in a litany of crimes over the years including kidnapping, sex trafficking, bribery, arson, forced labor and obstruction of justice.
Though RICO cases are more typically associated with the mafia, street gangs or drug cartels, any loose association of two or more people is enough, like Combs’ entourage, said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahami. Prosecutors during the trial aimed to demonstrate a pattern of racketeering or two or more RICO predicate acts that occurred over 10 years. That’s why the evidence of bribery, kidnapping, obstruction, witness tampering and prostitution became key to the case.
Key to the government’s case was the testimony of three women: Combs’ onetime lover Ventura, whose 2023 lawsuit set off the unraveling of Combs’ enterprise and reputation; his most recent ex-girfriend, Jane; and his former assistant, only identified in court as Mia.
In the trial, Ventura testified she felt “trapped” in a cycle of physical and sexual abuse by Combs, and that the relationship involved years of beatings, sexual blackmail and a rape.
She claimed Combs threatened to leak videos of her sexual encounters with numerous male sex workers while drug-intoxicated and covered with baby oil as he watched and orchestrated the freak-offs.
One of those freak-offs led to an infamous hotel beating that was captured on hotel security cameras. Video footage from that March 2016 night shows Combs punching and kicking Ventura as she cowers and tries to protect herself in front of an L.A. hotel elevator bank. He then drags her down the hall by her hooded sweatshirt toward their hotel room.
A second angle from another camera captures Combs throwing a vase toward her. She suffered bruising to her eye, a fat lip and a bruise that prosecutors showed was still visible during a movie premiere two days later, where she wore sunglasses and heavy makeup on the red carpet.
In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Atty. Christy Slavik told jurors Combs “counted on silence and shame” to enable and prolong his abuse and used a “small army” of employees to harm women and cover it up, according to the Associated Press.
Combs, he said, “doesn’t take no for an answer.”
When it came time for Combs’ defense team to present their case, they opted to move straight to closing arguments without presenting a witness. Rahami, the former federal prosecutor, said the defense expected jurors would question why those on the stand did not report the behavior to authorities at the time it was occurring and, in some cases, chose to stay in Combs’ orbit.
Marc Agnifilo, one of Combs’ lawyers, told jurors in closing that federal prosecutors “exaggerated” their case and sought to turn the hip-hop mogul’s swinger lifestyle into the most serious of federal offenses — racketeering and sex trafficking, without the evidence to back it up. In reality, Combs has a drug problem and his relationship with Ventura was a “modern love story” where the mogul “owns the domestic violence” that was revealed in the trial, Agnifilo said.
NEW YORK — Sean “Diddy” Combs demanded $20,000 from Casandra “Cassie” Ventura’s mother and threatened to release explicit sex tapes of his longtime girlfriend when he became angry that she was dating someone else, the mother testified Tuesday at the hip-hop mogul’s sex trafficking trial.
Regina Ventura said she felt “physically sick” when she received an email from Cassie in late 2011 saying Combs was planning to release two explicit videos of her and send someone to hurt her and the man she was seeing, rapper Kid Cudi.
“I did not understand a lot of it. The sex tapes threw me,” Ventura told the Manhattan federal court.
Ventura, of New London, Conn., said she then received a demand from Combs for $20,000 “to recoup money he had spent on her because he was unhappy she was in a relationship with Kid Cudi.”
“He was angry that he had spent money on her and she went with another person,” she said.
Ventura said she used a home equity loan to make the payment because “I was scared for my daughter’s safety.” Days later, she said, the money was returned, and before long, Cassie was dating Combs again.
Ventura testified for less than a half-hour, in part because defense attorney Marc Agnifilo declined to cross-examine her. During her testimony, the jury was shown photographs of bruises on Cassie’s body that Ventura testified were taken when her daughter came home for Christmas in 2011.
Before the jury arrived Tuesday, Agnifilo tried to persuade Judge Arun Subramanian to disallow the testimony, saying it was “purely prejudicial” because it illustrated the wide difference between the financial status of the Ventura family and Combs. The judge allowed it though, saying the threats to release sex tapes and harm Cassie made it an instance of “potential extortion.”
The testimony came during the second week of the trial, which is scheduled to last up to two months. If convicted of the charges he faces, including racketeering, the Bad Boy Records founder could be sentenced to at least 15 years in prison.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he used threats and his powerful position in the hip-hop world to abuse women and others, and force Cassie to take part in drug-fueled sexual performances with other men that she said left her too drained to pursue her singing career.
Earlier Tuesday, David James, Combs’ personal assistant from 2007 to 2009, told the court that the job seemed to come with increasing perils. He said he quit when he realized that his life had been put in danger after he was forced to drive a car in which an angry Combs sat in the back seat with three handguns on his lap.
James said his job sometimes required him to ensure that hotel rooms where Combs stayed under the name “Frank Black” were stocked with the musician’s comforts, including fresh underwear, an iPod, apple sauce, vodka, baby oil, Viagra and condoms.
There were also surprising moments, James said, like one in 2008 when Combs asked him to bring an iPod from his Miami home to a hotel room. Upon entering, James said he saw Cassie on the bed with a white comforter pulled up to her neck and an unfamiliar naked man running from the room.
Another time, he said Combs summoned him to his office to show him video he’d recorded at a party of James dancing wildly and told him: “OK. I’m going to keep this footage in case I ever need it.” James said he took it as a threat to keep him in line.
Cassie testified last week that Combs threatened to release videos of her having sex with male sex workers during so-called freak-offs Combs orchestrated if she didn’t do as he said.
James also described being required to take lie detector tests twice when Combs was trying to find out who stole cash in one instance and a watch in another.
He said Combs was on drugs nearly every day, often taking Percocet by day and ecstasy by night. When he stocked Combs’ hotel rooms, he said, drugs were in a bag dropped off by security, including the pill meant to look like then-President Obama.
The moment when James saw the three guns on Combs’ lap came when he testified that he was involved in Combs’ attempt to confront his music industry rival Suge Knight at a Los Angeles diner in November 2008 — an incident that Cassie also testified about. He said he quit soon afterward.
“I was real shook up by it,” James testified. “This was the first time being Mr. Combs’ assistant that I realized my life was in danger.”
Before Tuesday’s lunch break, Sharay Hayes, an exotic dancer known as “The Punisher,” testified that Combs and Cassie brought him into the freak-offs world. He said a woman — Cassie using a pseudonym — called and told him it was her birthday and that her husband said she should hire a dancer.
Hayes said he arrived at a Manhattan hotel room expecting to perform a striptease for a small group of people but instead found the woman who hired him — whom he later found out was Cassie — alone with an otherwise naked man who hid his face with a burqa-like cloth. That man, he said, turned out to be Combs.
Hayes recalled seeing bottles of baby oil in bowls of water and getting handed a stack of $800 in cash. Later, after Combs watched him have a sexual encounter with Cassie, he said he was handed an additional $1,200. He said he was a fan of Combs but didn’t realize it was him in the room until a subsequent encounter at another hotel where the message on the TV screen said: “Essex House would like to welcome Mr. Sean Combs.”
Sisak and Neumeister write for the Associated Press.
Holidaymakers have been left bitterly disappointed after P&O Cruises pulled the plug on a 35-night Caribbean cruise aboard the Ventura – just weeks after another cruise was scrapped.
The Ventura was cancelled out of the blue(Image: Getty)
The long-haul voyage, which was due to set sail on January 4, 2027, has been cancelled due to what the cruise line is calling “operational reasons.”
It follows the recent axing of a 14-night trip on sister ship Iona, which had been scheduled to depart on August 30, 2026.
In an earlier cancellation, the BBC reported on how cruise passengers hit out at P&O Cruises after two voyages scheduled for October 2025 aboard the Iona were scrapped to make way for a refit.
The cruises, both due to depart from Southampton, were pulled from the calendar, with the company citing the need for maintenance work.
Guests were offered full refunds along with on-board spending credit as an incentive to re-book another trip.
But many said the gesture didn’t go far enough – especially when they discovered that like-for-like holidays on different dates came with a hefty price hike.
In an email sent to passengers affect by the recent Ventura cancellation, P&O said:
“Due to operational reasons, we’re sorry to inform you that your cruise, departing 4 January 2027, is no longer going ahead.
“We understand this news is disappointing and would like to apologise for the inconvenience this may cause.
“To avoid you missing out on your holiday, however, we’ve automatically transferred you to an alternative cruise, G701, on board Iona.”
Frustrated passengers have since taken to Facebook to vent their anger and sadness over the abrupt change, with many saying they were looking forward to the now-cancelled voyage.
“On occasion, it is necessary to change an itinerary from the one previously published and we are very sorry that Ventura’s 35-night Caribbean itinerary departing January 04 2027, has been cancelled.
“Where possible, we are pleased to offer affected guests to transfer to Iona’s similar Caribbean sailing across the same dates.
“Ventura will now offer three new itineraries, which go on sale on June 04, 2025.”
She already felt “trapped” in a cycle of physical and sexual abuse by him, she told a New York federal jury this week, outlining 11 years of alleged beatings, sexual blackmail and a rape.
She claimed Combs threatened to leak videos of her sexual encounters with numerous male sex workers while drug-intoxicated and glistening with baby oil as he watched and orchestrated the events, known as freak-offs.
“If I pleased him with a freak-off, then my premiere would run smoothly,” she said, according to reporting from inside the Manhattan courtroom from the Associated Press.
What happened next could end up being the beginning of the end of Combs’ public life.
Video footage from that March 2016 night shows Combs punching and kicking Ventura as she cowers and tries to protect herself in front of an L.A. hotel elevator bank. He then drags her down the hall by her hooded sweatshirt toward their hotel room. A second angle from another camera captures Combs throwing a vase toward her. She suffered bruising to her eye, a fat lip, and a bruise that prosecutors showed was still visible during the movie premiere two days later. She donned sunglasses and heavy makeup on the red carpet.
Ventura’s testimony is at the center of the federal trial accusing Combs of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation for prostitution.
Sweeping allegations
The federal indictment alleges that Combs and his associates lured female victims, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship. Combs then allegedly used force, threats of force, coercion and controlled substances to get women to engage in sex acts with male prostitutes while he occasionally watched in gatherings that Combs referred to as “freak-offs.” Combs gave the women ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to “keep them obedient and compliant” during the performances.
The freak-offs, which prosecutors say sometimes lasted for days, were elaborately produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often recorded, according to the indictment. Prosecutors allege in a detention memo filed in court that the freak-offs occurred regularly from at least 2009 through 2023 and that the hotel rooms where they were staged often sustained significant damage.
Combs’ alleged “criminal enterprise” threatened and abused women and utilized members of his enterprise to engage in sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution, coercion and enticement to engage in prostitution, narcotics offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice, prosecutors said. In bringing so-called RICO charges, prosecutors in opening statements said Combs was helped by cadre of company employees, security staff and aides. They allegedly helped organize the crime and “freak-offs” and then covered up the incidents. Thus far, Combs is the only one facing criminal charges related to the investigation.
Combs’ attorney this week said her client was far from perfect but that the charges were overblown.
“Sean Combs is a complicated man. But this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money,” Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos told jurors. “There has been a tremendous amount of noise around this case over the past year. It is time to cancel that noise.”
How Ventura and Combs met
Jurors heard that Ventura was 19 when she met the 37-year-old Combs in 2005, and she signed a 10-year contract with his Bad Boy Records label. About two years later, he had Britney Spears come to her 21st birthday party, where Ventura and Combs kissed and their relationship began, she said. She testified that the freak-offs became a way of life, and she even stepped away from her own birthday party for one.
Cassie Ventura, left, and Sean “Diddy” Combs arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story” at the Writers Guild Theater on June 21, 2017, in Beverly Hills.
(Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP)
Combs, she told jurors, required her to let a male sex worker urinate in her mouth. That man and others were paid thousands of dollars to have sex repeatedly for 36 to 48 hours, she told the jury.
On the stand, Ventura identified 13 male sex workers through photos presented by prosecutors that she said Combs’ had her recruit for the freak-offs. Hers and Combs’ relationship would end on a day in 2018 when she met him for dinner and he raped her on her living room floor, she testified.
Violence
During four days of testimony, Ventura, who is eight and a half months pregnant, described being raped, beaten at least six times, most severely in 2009.
In the 2009 attack, she testified that Combs was “stomping” on her face after he discovered she was dating rapper Kid Cudi. Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, had his car torched a short time afterward. Prosecutors allege in court papers that Combs ordered it.
Legal analysis
Legal experts say the testimony is designed to build the federal case against Combs, even if on the surface it does not appear directly related to the charges he’s facing.
“Why is the government talking about rape and assault when the charges are RICO and sex trafficking?” said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani. Well, he said, “what separates sex trafficking from consensual sex between adults — which the defense is arguing — is force, fraud or coercion.”
“Ventura’s testimony that she was given drugs to the point of throwing up … and forced to have sex when she was menstruating or had a UTI is evidence of coercion,” he said.
Rahmani said that Ventura’s portrayal of Combs as a gun-brandishing mogul who beat her on multiple occasions, tracked her movements and sent a security team to find her is evidence of force.
Then there were the alleged threats. She recounted that during a commercial flight in 2013, Combs pulled out his laptop and began playing a freak-off recording as they sat together. She said Combs told her that he was going to embarrass her and release them.
“I feared for my career. I feared for my family. It’s just embarrassing. It’s horrible and disgusting. No one should do that to anyone,” Ventura said.
Authorities raid Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Los Angeles home as part of an ongoing sex trafficking investigation
(Eric Thayer / Associated Press)
Rahmani said the racketeering charge against Combs requires prosecutors to prove the existence of a criminal enterprise.
“People typically think of the mob, street gangs, or drug cartels, but any loose association of two or more people is enough like Combs’ entourage,” the former federal prosecutor said. They must show two or more predicate acts over 10 years.
“That is why the evidence of bribery, kidnapping, obstruction, witness tampering and prostitution is important,” he said.
LAPD officer testimony
Israel Florez, a hotel security guard who confronted Combs in 2016, now a Los Angeles Police officer, testified Combs flashed a bundle of cash at him — something he believed was an attempted bribe. He rejected it, he said.
Combs’ defense is seeking to paint Ventura as participating in the behavior, recruiting and paying sex partners, acquiring narcotics and texting to push for freak-offs that were part of a swingers’ lifestyle. She is one of four alleged victims in the case, with jurors expected to hear from at least three of them.
On Thursday, defense attorney Anne Estevao had Ventura read a series of loving texts to Combs and got Ventura to testify she’d watched Combs have sex with another woman on multiple occasions. To support the swingers’ defense, the lawyer produced a 2009 text where the singer declared, “I’m always ready to freak off.”
Ventura sued Combs in the fall of 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse, triggering a cascade of lawsuits and allegations by others who say they’re victims of Combs and eventually, a raid by Homeland Security on his L.A. and Miami homes and his arrest. Ventura acknowledged Wednesday that she got a $20-million settlement within days of filing her lawsuit.
Combs attorney pushes back
During opening statements in a Manhattan federal courtroom, Geragos, one of Combs’ defense attorneys, drew a distinction for jurors between the violence they would hear testimony about and the charges Combs was facing, saying “domestic violence is not sex trafficking.”
She said the video of Ventura’s assault in the hotel was indefensible, but that the singer “made a choice” to stay with Combs for 11 years.
After the attack, a friend called police to Ventura’s home, she testified. But when officers arrived, she did not identify Combs as the culprit.
The prosecutor asked her why she did not talk. “In that moment, I didn’t want to hurt him that way. I wasn’t ready,” she replied.
On Thursday, the defense cross-examining Ventura sought to change the narrative using dozens of text messages between Combs and Ventura. In a July 2013 text message exchange, Comb’s defense lawyer noted that Cassie raised the idea of having a “freak-off,” writing to Combs: “Wish we could’ve FO’d before you left.”
Using the text message exchanges, the defense lawyer highlighted Ventura’s admitted jealousy over the attention he gave other women.
“You’re making me look like a side piece and that is not what I thought I was,” Cassie told Combs in a 2013 text message.
Estevao tried to recast the hotel incident as the result of the two taking a “bad batch” of the psychedelic stimulant MDMA during a “freak-off” before the hotel beating.
During her testimony this week, Ventura testified that Combs allegedly overdosed on opioids while partying at the Playboy Mansion in 2012. While she wasn’t there, she said, he told her about it.
Ventura’s testimony ended on Friday.
The Associated Press contributed court testimony for this analysis.
