Four months after testifying at Sean Combs’ criminal trial in New York, celebrity stylist Deonte Nash has filed a lawsuit alleging that the music mogul trapped him in a “dark world” of repeated sexual battery, physical assault, stalking, and threats that turned his childhood dream of working in the entertainment industry into “a nightmare.”
In a complaint filed Wednesday in Los Angeles, Nash claims Combs pinched his nipples, groped his buttocks, grinded on his groin, and once forced his hand onto Combs’ penis while Nash worked for Combs and his former girlfriend, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura between 2008 and 2018.
Echoing his testimony from the third week of Combs’ New York trial, Nash says Combs also subjected him to violent physical assaults. He claims Combs became enraged and “severely strangled” him in 2013 when he tried to stop Combs from beating Ventura bloody inside her apartment. Nash says when he tried to call the police, Combs intervened, causing him to “imminently fear for his life.” In another incident in 2013 or 2014, Combs allegedly drove to a set where Ventura was filming a music video and attacked Nash again, fuming over his discovery that Nash and Ventura had gone out to dinner the night before. Combs “threw [Nash] up onto the car and violently strangled him,” the lawsuit says. (In his testimony, Nash told jurors he was smoking a cigarette when Combs appeared out of nowhere and “started choking me out.”)
Nash claims threats, intimidation, and “psychological manipulation” were pervasive during his tenure as well. He says once in 2014, Combs grabbed and slapped him in the back of his head as a frightened Ventura tried to escape another “outburst” by climbing out a window. He says Combs and a driver then chased him on a freeway, pursuing him at nearly 100 mph, leaving him “terrified.” He alleges Combs “bragged about violently retaliating against people that had turned against him,” and that Combs’ employees “knew” their boss had “guns and weapons around.”
“After enduring years of abuse, I finally found the courage during the criminal trial, and I am now ready to take action,” Nash said in a statement shared with Rolling Stone. “Sean Combs has never taken accountability for the years of harm he inflicted on me and so many others. Today, I am free from the confinement his abuse imposed, and I have reclaimed my voice. It is time for the world to confront the truth about the horrific abuse I endured and the lasting impact of Mr. Combs’ actions on my life. His abuse has consistently affected every part of my life, from my personal well-being to my career, and the damage cannot be ignored. I am reclaiming my story and demanding the justice I deserve.”
Attempts to reach a spokesperson for Combs were not immediately successful early Wednesday. He and his lawyers previously denied the range of allegations in an onslaught of lawsuits, saying, “Mr. Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor.”
Nash says in the new lawsuit that he was too afraid to step forward before he was “forced” to testify at Combs’ trial through a subpoena. During two days of testimony, the fashion stylist walked jurors through the dramatic incident at Ventura’s apartment in 2013. He said Combs went on a rampage as Nash was helping Ventura pack for a trip. In her own testimony, Ventura said Combs berated her for sleeping too long and hurled her into the corner of her bedframe, causing a “pretty significant gash” near her eyebrow that bled profusely and required stitches.
Nash testified that Combs was so out of control that day, he jumped on the Bad Boy Entertainment founder’s back to stop him. “He threw me off,” Nash testified. “[He] continued to hit Cassie until her head hit the edge of the bed frame. … When he noticed the blood, he just panicked.”
At his trial, Combs, 55, was convicted of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but acquitted of the more serious charges of felony racketeering and the alleged sex trafficking of Ventura and another ex-girlfriend who testified under a pseudonym. His defense lawyer, Mark Agnifilo, said during his closing argument that Combs took responsibility for the allegations of domestic violence raised by Ventura. “We own it. It happened,” Agnifilo told the panel on June 27. “If he was charged with domestic violence, we wouldn’t all be here having a trial, because he would have pled guilty – because he did that.”
Nash’s lawsuit expands beyond his trial testimony to give detailed accounts of the instances where Combs allegedly sexually assaulted or battered him. He claims Combs exposed his penis and approached him during a party in 2013 or 2014, and then, about a year later, pinched his nipples without consent after cornering him in a bathroom in Las Vegas. He alleges that another time in August 2016, Combs “forcibly” grabbed his hand and forced it onto the mogul’s penis while Combs was wearing only underwear and laughing. When Nash tried to walk away, he says, Combs grabbed his buttocks and stuck his tongue out in a sexual manner.
Combs purportedly grabbed Nash’s buttocks again during a Bad Boy Reunion Tour party in Los Angeles in 2017, saying, “You need to be out there slangin’ that dick baby,” according to the lawsuit. “Mr. Nash jumped and was in shock because he felt Combs’ fingers squeeze his butt,” the filing states. Nash claims that in 2018, during a fitting with Ventura at a townhouse in New York City, Combs “grinded” on Nash’s genital area in a sexually charged way. “This is how I make love to my lady,” Combs allegedly said at the time, leaving Nash feeling “violated and offended.”
“Combs sexually assaulted Mr. Nash in this manner over and over for more than a decade,” the lawsuit filed by lawyers Brett Schreiber, Meagan Verschueren, Katie Llamas, and Kristina Aiad-Toss alleges. The lawsuit claims Combs was “obsessed” with Nash’s homosexuality, bringing it up constantly. “Degrading comments about Mr. Nash’s homosexuality were a way Combs manipulated and controlled him,” it states. “He used it as a sword in [an] attempt to demean or belittle Mr. Nash as if being gay was something that Mr. Nash should be ashamed of – or that Mr. Nash was inferior because Mr. Nash did not conceal his sexuality.”
The lawsuit lists claims for human trafficking, assault, battery, sexual battery, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, gender violence, sexual orientation violence, and destructive discharge, meaning Combs allegedly created such toxic working conditions that Nash was forced to resign. It names several of Combs’ companies, including Bad Boy Entertainment and Combs Global, as co-defendants.
“Combs used his power and threats of harm to compel Mr. Nash to do his bidding and prevent him from leaving defendants’ control. Even after his employment ended, threats continued, and Mr. Nash has not felt safe, even to this day,” the lawsuit states. “Though defendants have silenced him for years, Mr. Nash is no longer willing to give in to this fear for his life and is now standing up to demand justice.”
Combs is currently in federal custody in New York, awaiting his sentencing on Oct. 3. He’s also facing dozens of civil lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct, though Combs has challenged many as being too old for the courts to bother considering their merits.
In a recent ruling, a federal judge permanently dismissed 21 of the 22 causes of action brought by Making the Band 2 contestant Sara Rivers in a lengthy $60 million racketeering lawsuit filed in February. The judge signaled he also planned to dismiss the final remaining cause of action alleging Combs sexually assaulted Rivers at his recording studio in the early aughts, but he’s waiting for an appeals court decision on whether the claim-revival window opened under New York City’s Gender Motivated Violence Protection Act was legally allowed to remain open after New York’s Adult Survivors Act, a statewide statute, closed its window for otherwise time-barred sexual misconduct claims.
Rivers is appealing the judge’s decision.
