Connect with us

Northeast

Sean 'Diddy' Combs hotel video likely to speed up federal case, investigator says

Published

on

Sean 'Diddy' Combs hotel video likely to speed up federal case, investigator says

Join Fox News for access to this content

Plus special access to select articles and other premium content with your account – free of charge.

Please enter a valid email address.

By entering your email and pushing continue, you are agreeing to Fox News’ Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which includes our Notice of Financial Incentive. To access the content, check your email and follow the instructions provided.

Having trouble? Click here.

The shocking release Friday of years-old hotel security video that allegedly shows billionaire entertainment mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs beating up then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in Los Angeles is likely to speed up the federal investigation into the Bad Boy Records founder’s conduct, according to an expert on hip-hop related crime.

Derrick Parker, a former investigator with the NYPD’s rap intelligence unit who played a role in the 1999 investigation into a nightclub shooting where Combs was charged but later acquitted, said federal prosecutors are going to react strongly to the newly emerged footage.

Advertisement

“Everybody’s gonna see this, and they’re gonna see what a real dirtbag he is,” Parker told Fox News Digital. “The public itself is gonna see him in a different light. The government now is likely gonna accelerate his case.”

SEAN ‘DIDDY’ COMBS ALLEGEDLY ASSAULTS EX-GIRLFRIEND CASSIE VENTURA IN NEWLY RELEASED HOTEL VIDEO

Sean “Diddy” Combs and Cassie Ventura attend “The Perfect Match” premiere in Los Angeles March 7, 2016. (Matt Baron/Shutterstock)

He predicted federal racketeering (RICO) charges against Combs before July 4.

The video, recorded in 2016, remained hidden from public scrutiny until CNN exclusively obtained it Friday afternoon. 

Advertisement

It allegedly shows Combs, wearing just socks and a towel around his waist, brutally beating Ventura in the hallway of a luxe Los Angeles hotel.

“This video is very damaging to his case,” Parker said. “This is gonna hurt him badly, because it adds credence to what Ms. Ventura has been alleging about the abuse from him.”

A still image from Los Angeles surveillance video appears to show Sean “Diddy” Combs attacking girlfriend Cassie Ventura in 2016. (Obtained Exclusively by CNN)

Ventura sued Combs in November, alleging physical and sexual abuse and described the encounter in court documents. The parties settled a day later for an undisclosed sum.

SEAN ‘DIDDY’ COMBS ACCUSERS CAN’T BE SILENCED BY NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS IN TRAFFICKING PROBE: EXPERTS

Advertisement

“Mr. Combs became extremely intoxicated and punched Ms. Ventura in the face, giving her a black eye,” her lawyers alleged in court documents.

He was drunk, according to the lawsuit, and when he passed out, she tried to sneak out. But he allegedly woke up and resumed screaming at her, followed her into the hallway, threw her on the ground and smashed a vase on the floor.

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ legal team filed a new motion to dismiss claims in one of four lawsuits against the rapper. (Shareif Ziyadat)

More accusers came forward in the following months, and federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations raided two of Combs’ mansions in March, leading to widespread speculation that criminal charges would follow.

In addition to the accusers coming forward with civil lawsuits, authorities in Miami arrested a Combs associate named Brendan Paul on drug charges.

Advertisement

“They build these factors into a RICO case,” Parker said. “They had this one supplying him guns. This one supplying drugs. He had all these women at sex parties.”

SEAN ‘DIDDY’ COMBS PROBE: RECORD LABEL FIRES BACK AFTER MALE MUSIC PRODUCER ACCUSES MOGUL OF SEX ASSAULT

Sean “Diddy” Combs rides a bicycle from his home across the Star Island Bridge in Miami Beach, Fla., April 4, 2024.  (Romain Maurice/Mega for Fox News Digital)

Parker said he expects racketeering and trafficking charges.

And the video is going to hurt his defense, Parker said. A lot.

Advertisement

READ THE VENTURA COMPLAINT – APP USERS, CLICK HERE:

“It makes him look like a liar, because he said all these things are false allegations against me,” Parker said. “You can’t clear your name over that, kicking her and dragging her and slapping her.”

Combs’ team did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment. 

Parker, who wrote the book “Notorious C.O.P.” about his experience in the NYPD’s hip-hop unit, warned in April that evidence in Ventura’s case would be subpoenaed by the Justice Department, overriding any potential nondisclosure agreement reached in the settlement.

Sean “Diddy” Combs smiles at boaters as they pass by his Star Island home in Miami Beach, Fla., April 7, 2024.  (Zak Bennett for Fox News Digital)

Advertisement

“She already alleged some criminal acts, right before he settled with her,” Parker told Fox News Digital. “They could subpoena her about what she said, how she knew.”

In court filings, she claimed Combs not only raped her and subjected her to physical abuse but also blew up another man’s car, regularly hired prostitutes and forced her to carry his gun and procure drugs.

Read the full article from Here

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Boston, MA

Historian clears up one of the biggest myths about the Boston Tea Party

Published

on

Historian clears up one of the biggest myths about the Boston Tea Party


When Americans think of the beverage that fueled the American Revolution, they usually picture black tea — but it turns out that green tea was just as popular.

The Founding Fathers and their contemporaries drank both types of tea, Bruce Richardson, the Kentucky-based founder of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas, told Fox News Digital.

British subjects “were as likely to be drinking green tea as black tea, whether you were in Jane Austen [era] England … or you were in colonial Boston,” he added.

“There were five teas, all from China, because that was the only country that was exporting tea,” Richardson said. “And of those five different teas, two of them were green and three of them were black.”

Advertisement

Richardson, a tea historian who works as the tea master at the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, said the five types of tea dumped into Boston Harbor in protest of the Tea Act of 1773 included three black varieties — Bohea, Souchong and Congou — as well as the green teas Hyson and Singlo.

Bohea, the most common and least expensive black tea of the era, was often made from older tea leaves harvested after the highest-quality leaves of the season had already been picked.

Most of the tea dumped into Boston Harbor was Bohea, Richardson said — and it was so ubiquitous that he compared it to the way Kleenex has become synonymous with tissues today.

The Founding Fathers and their contemporaries drank both types of tea, Bruce Richardson, the Kentucky-based founder of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas said. Getty Images

“It was so common that often teapots at the time, or some that I’ve seen, would say Bohea on the side of the teapot,” he said. “If they wanted tea, they’d say, ‘I’ll have a cup of Bohea.’ It was that common.”

Not only did colonial Americans distinguish between green and black tea, they even stored them differently.

Advertisement

“They still wanted their tea time, but they didn’t want to support the British government.”

“The well-to-do people would have a tea caddy – a wooden, beautifully made tea caddy to store their tea in,” he said.

“It was kept under lock and key. And in that tea caddy, [there] would be two compartments, one for green tea and one for black tea.”


Pouring sencha or genmaicha from a green clay teapot into a ceramic teacup.
There were five teas, all from China, because that was the only country that was exporting tea, and green and black teas were very popular! Kristina Blokhin – stock.adobe.com

Merchants often favored black tea because it held up better during the long voyage from China to Europe and onward to the American colonies, Richardson said.

“The green tea was what China had always drunk,” he said.

“And so they were exporting that as well, but they found that the black tea actually made the voyage better than the green teas.”

Advertisement

Even after many colonists swore off British tea, they kept the ritual of drinking it — or at least a close substitute.

Many patriots brewed so-called “Liberty Teas” made from ingredients such as dried apples, blueberries, chamomile and herbs grown in their gardens.

“They still wanted their tea time, but they didn’t want to support the British government,” Richardson said.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Pittsburg, PA

Pittsburgh area’s low jobless rate beats state, U.S. rates

Published

on

Pittsburgh area’s low jobless rate beats state, U.S. rates






Source link

Continue Reading

Connecticut

CT poised to invest again in childcare, pay down pension debt

Published

on

CT poised to invest again in childcare, pay down pension debt


Having racked up its ninth hefty budget surplus in a row, Connecticut is poised to expand a record investment in affordable childcare while taking another big chunk out of its legacy pension debt.

The $27.2 billion state budget for the fiscal year that closes Tuesday is on pace for a $412 million operating surplus — all of it earmarked by legislators and Gov. Ned Lamont for a special endowment for early childhood education.

A special savings program outside the formal budget should capture another $1.3 billion in income and business tax receipts. Most of that, roughly $1 billion to $1.1 billion, will go toward shrinking the state’s pension debt. The rest will boost Connecticut’s emergency reserve or “rainy day fund” to almost $4.5 billion — 18% of annual operating expenses, the maximum allowed by law.

Advertisement

“Making Connecticut more affordable means making it easier for families to live, work and raise children here,” Lamont wrote in a statement. “High-quality early childhood education gives children the strongest possible start in life while helping parents pursue careers, grow their incomes and contribute to our economy.”

Connecticut’s early childhood commissioner, Elena Trueworth, added in the statement that “This endowment represents a transformational commitment to Connecticut’s youngest children and the families who depend on high-quality early childhood education.”

Eligible families are expected to begin receiving no-cost childcare or partial assistance subsidized by the endowment starting in the 2027-28 fiscal year.

Saving for childcare was challenging this past year

The governor and his fellow Democrats in the legislature’s majority launched the Early Childhood Education Endowment with $300 million in June 2025. With a goal of adding thousands of affordable childcare program slots by 2030, officials dedicated future operating surpluses toward this effort. Separately, the special savings program outside the formal budget would remain focused on reducing pension debt.

That strategy hit a snag earlier this year.

Advertisement

While officials planned for another $300 million-plus operating surplus, rising Medicaid and fringe benefit costs — and smaller-than-anticipated corporation tax receipts — wiped out the entire projected fiscal cushion.

Lamont and lawmakers responded by raiding the off-budget savings program, moving hundreds of millions of dollars into the General Fund. That transfer, coupled with a last-minute surge in tax receipts, created the $412 million surplus now headed into the childcare endowment.

“We’re making a smart, long-term investment that will lower costs for families, strengthen our workforce, and ensure this support is available for generations to come,” Lamont said. “This is exactly why we have managed the state’s finances responsibly, so that when we have the opportunity to make transformational investments, we can do so without raising taxes or compromising our long-term fiscal stability.”

Officials dedicated $11 billion in surplus since 2020 to pay pension debt

Even with those adjustments to the off-budget program, the administration estimates Connecticut will still have saved $1 billion to $1.1 billion to deposit into its pension funds for state employees and municipal teachers. A final tally won’t be known until the comptroller’s office completes its formal audit of the last budget cycle in September.

Once that’s done, officials will have dedicated a total of about $11 billion from special savings to reduce pension debt since 2020.

Advertisement

Still, analysts project the state won’t have eliminated all unfunded pension liabilities before the 2040s.

Connecticut entered this fiscal year with more than $33 billion in unfunded pension obligations, according to analysts, and the state remains one of the most indebted per capita in the nation.

Most of that debt stems from inadequate saving by legislatures and governors for more than seven decades between 1939 and 2010, according to a 2015 report prepared for the state by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. By not saving properly, the state government severely restricted the potential investment earnings, forfeiting billions of dollars across seven decades.

As a result, mandatory pension contributions continue to place heavy pressure on state finances, drawing resources away from other programs and services.

Watershed debate on CT savings program expected next term

Meanwhile, Lamont’s critics say the savings program he embraces is too aggressive.

Advertisement

Between operating surpluses and off-budget savings programs, Connecticut has left an average of $1.8 billion unspent — roughly 8% of the General Fund — since new budget caps were enacted in 2017. By comparison, the two prior decades of state budgets produced an average annual savings of 0.1% of the General Fund.

In other words, critics say, the new system is forcing a single generation to retire a pension debt problem created by three — and that education, health care, municipal aid and other core programs are suffering as a result.

Many of Lamont’s fellow Democrats in the legislature — including state Rep. Josh Elliott of Hamden, who is challenging the governor for the party’s gubernatorial nomination — say Connecticut could retire debt at a more modest pace and invest far more in programs and direct aid to cities and towns.

The Republican gubernatorial nominee, state Sen. Ryan Fazio of Greenwich, called earlier this year for the state to reduce savings efforts in order to dramatically expand tax cuts for Connecticut’s middle class.

Legislative leaders from both parties have said they expect a debate over state government’s savings habits to dominate the next General Assembly term, which covers the 2027 and 2028 sessions.

Advertisement

This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://ctmirror.org/2026/06/30/ct-to-invest-surplus-in-childcare-pay-down-pension-debt/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://ctmirror.org”>CT Mirror</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://ctmirror.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/cropped-CTMirror_bug_rgb-180×180.jpg” style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>

<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://ctmirror.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=1172734&amp;ga4=G-9GVNVL530Q” style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://ctmirror.org/2026/06/30/ct-to-invest-surplus-in-childcare-pay-down-pension-debt/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/ctmirror.org/p.js”></script>



Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending