A day after Sean Combs and his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura settled an explosive lawsuit she filed against him in 2023, Combs was photographed at his Miami Beach home alongside his then-chief of staff, Kristina Khorram.
Khorram, or KK as Combs referred to her publicly, had seen him through difficult times before. She was among a handful of people he credited during a BET Awards acceptance speech in June 2022 for having helped him through a dark period in his life.
The year before, Combs praised Khorram on his Facebook page, introducing her to his millions of followers as the woman who kept everything in his life and business running.
“She’s been my right hand for the last 8 years and has consistently proven to execute and get s— done,” he wrote in the January 2021 post. “Don’t know how I’d function without her.”
Khorram is under increasing scrutiny as her former boss faces trial in federal court next month on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Ventura’s lawsuit laid the groundwork for the criminal case, in which he’s accused of forcing women to participate in elaborate, drug-fueled sexual encounters he called “freak offs” that involved male sex workers.
Combs has pleaded not guilty and is detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Khorram’s role in Combs’ trial, if any, is unclear. She has not been charged with any crimes and is not named in the indictment, which alleges Combs led a criminal enterprise that engaged in kidnapping, arson and bribery over the course of two decades. Last month, Khorram publicly denied “aiding and abetting the sexual assault of anyone.”
But she has been named in at least three civil lawsuits filed against him, which accuse her of knowing about his violent and criminal behavior, enabling it and covering it up.
She started working for Combs in 2013 as a senior executive, according to her now-deleted LinkedIn account.
Mark Lesko, a former federal prosecutor who was on the team that won a conviction against NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere, said in a sex trafficking case, particularly one involving a high-profile person like Combs, close employees and associates are essential to helping carry out the scheme.
“The principal, like Diddy, or like Keith Raniere, or like R. Kelly, they’re not going to get into the logistics,” Lesko said in an interview. “They’re not going to get into the minutiae of running a sex trafficking ring. They view themselves as above that, and they’re going to ultimately be the beneficiaries of it, unfortunately, but they need their workers, people who can execute on their orders to accomplish the goals of the criminal scheme.”
Raniere and R. Kelly were convicted of sex trafficking and racketeering.
Music producer Rodney Jones said he lived with Combs for months at a time while they worked on an album in 2022 and 2023. In a lawsuit filed last year, he compared the relationship between Combs and Khorram to that of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for recruiting and grooming underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse.
The indictment alleges Combs forced women to participate in the freak offs, which he arranged, directed and often filmed, and used his power and prestige to silence victims through blackmail and violence.
Prosecutors say Combs’ employees — including high-ranking supervisors, personal assistants and security and household staff — acted as his intermediaries by arranging travel and hotel rooms for freak offs, stocking the rooms with supplies including controlled substances, lubricant, baby oil, extra linens and lighting, finding women and others whom he targeted for abuse, and concealing and covering up the abuse.
NBC News requested interviews with the three accusers either directly or through their attorneys. Only one responded, but declined to answer specific questions about the suit.
Combs has been accused of sexual assault and misconduct in more than 50 civil lawsuits since he and Ventura privately settled her complaint. His attorney said the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing, and Combs has vehemently denied the allegations in the pending civil suits.
Khorram did not reply to phone and email messages requesting an interview for this article. Her attorneys did not reply to requests for comment regarding the allegations that have been made against her in the civil suits.
One of her attorneys, Deborah Colson, said last week that she could not comment on whether Khorram was testifying at Combs’ trial.
In a statement last month to Rolling Stone, Khorram said: “For months, horrific accusations have been made about me in various lawsuits regarding my former boss. These false allegations of my involvement are causing irreparable and incalculable damage to my reputation and the emotional well-being of myself and my family. I have never condoned or aided and abetted the sexual assault of anyone. Nor have I ever drugged anyone.”
“The idea that I could be accused of playing a role in — or even being a bystander to — the rape of anyone is beyond upsetting, disturbing, and unthinkable. That is not who I am and my heart goes out to all victims of sexual assault. I am confident that the allegations against me will be proven to be untrue.”
Seven Güzel, who described herself in a complaint filed in February as an aspiring signed artist when she met Combs in the fall of 2017, said Combs groomed her before sexually assaulting and raping her on multiple occasions. She said she fell into a cycle of abuse with Combs, who plied her with alcohol and drugs.
She alleges that Khorram aided in the alleged abuse by arranging places and transportation for it to occur, contacting her on Combs’ behalf and “generally” covering up the abuse. Güzel also said Khorram acquired illicit drugs and substances for him to incapacitate alleged victims.
Jones, a music producer who said he lived and traveled with Combs during the making of Combs’ LP “The Love Album: Off the Grid,” alleged in his suit that Khorram enabled Combs’ behavior.
Jones’ suit alleges Combs sexually harassed and assaulted him, tried to “groom” him into having sex with another man and forced him to hire sex workers and participate in sex acts with them. The suit says that when Jones expressed to Khorram his discomfort about Combs’ advances, she dismissed it as friendly horseplay, telling Jones it was Combs’ way of “showing that he likes you.”
On several occasions when Combs would undress and walk around his home naked, Khorram would say she was leaving and disappear, Jones said.
“KK’s hypocrisy is breathtaking at best and or enabling at worst,” the suit says. Jones also says in the lawsuit that he saw Khorram order her assistants to keep Combs “high” on gummies and pills, and that she required all employees, “from the butler to the chef to the housekeepers,” to carry a pouch or fanny pack filled with cocaine, ecstasy, tusi (a combination of ecstasy and cocaine in a pink powder) and other drugs.
Khorram would also order and pay sex workers for Combs, according to the suit. Jones claimed to have a text message from Khorram asking him to contact a particular sex worker.
Jones was terrified of Combs and felt he could not tell him no, he said in the suit. In response, a representative for Combs said: “Mr. Jones’s lawsuit is pure fiction — a shameless attempt to create media hype and extract a quick settlement. There was no RICO conspiracy, and Mr. Jones was not threatened, groomed, assaulted, or trafficked. We look forward to proving — in a court of law — that all of Mr. Jones’s claims are made-up and must be dismissed.”
In a response to Jones’ lawsuit filed on April 7, Khorram denied all the allegations.
Phillip Pines, 40, said in a lawsuit filed in December that he worked as a senior executive assistant to Combs for about two years, from December 2019 through Dec. 29, 2021, and reported directly to Combs and Khorram.
He named the two in a lawsuit filed in December and participated in Investigation Discovery’s docuseries “The Fall of Diddy,” which debuted in January.
Pines said in his lawsuit he once witnessed Combs kick a guest in the buttocks and stomach in Miami, and that when he told Khorram about it and said he was upset, she told him never to speak about it and that “there are repercussions that can happen if he did.”
Pines alleged in the suit the guest was given “nice gifts and a nice dinner” to make up for it. In the documentary, Pines said the guest was a woman.
Pines’ suit also said that when he traveled with Combs, Combs and Khorram put him in charge of the “MVP” bag, a black Gucci bag that contained illicit drugs and sex toys.
Lesko, the former federal prosecutor, said it is likely prosecutors have already sought to compel Khorram’s testimony, or are in the process of doing so.
“I strongly suspect that the government is interacting closely with Diddy’s inner circle, with his high-level employees and associates, one way or the other, to try to unravel the story here,” Lesko said.
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