How Diddy's Right-Hand Woman Became the Phantom of His Trial

Yahoo

6 days ago

When hip-hop titan Sean 'Diddy' Combs was served in November 2023 with a searing 35-page complaint filed by his longtime ex-girlfriend, Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura, alleging years of physical violence, his carefully crafted public image and decades of empire-building were thrown into chaos.
That world-shattering moment of crisis was so dead-serious, it's now brought Combs, 'Diddy' or 'Puff,' if you work for him, before a judge and jury, facing federal sex-trafficking and racketeering charges in a high-profile trial.
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When Ventura filed her suit, Kristina Khorram was there, standing by his side, working her phone in full crisis mode for her boss of a decade. She was also there in 2016, sitting at Combs' side after he brought a bag containing $100,000 into the InterContinental Hotel in L.A., as a witness testified, in order to obtain the harrowing footage that could tank his public image (and it did, when CCTV video of him beating and dragging Ventura leaked to the press eight years later). For over a decade, Khorram, nicknamed 'KK,' was right there, next to Combs at these sort of moments of inflection. Six weeks of testimony just heard at his federal trial showed that the 38-year-old was steadfastly there for the powerful mogul: overseeing his assistants, assessing his moods, making appointments for the women he dated — and as several witnesses have told the court, 'KK' was pulling plenty of the strings to facilitate the deeds of which her boss is accused and then, as witnesses have said, helping to cover some of it up.
But as a grey-haired Combs has sat for six weeks in a lower Manhattan federal courtroom, wearing the same five dull sweater-and-trousers outfits, where his defense against the federal government's claims about his relationships with Cassie and others will determine if he spends the rest of his life in prison, Khorram hasn't been there. With an outsized role, first as a Bad Boy Records liaison and then as chief of staff for the rap and fashion mogul's multi-pronged company, she's had an uncommon hand in his personal life since she was promoted to her top role in 2020. Despite facing zero charges from the feds alongside Combs, testimony at the lower Manhattan federal courthouse indicates Khorram was deeply entrenched in many of the allegations discussed at trial. Though the five-count indictment of Combs stops short of naming names, Khorram is clearly one of the people who prosecutors are talking about when they talk about 'high-ranking supervisors' Combs used to 'carry out, facilitate and cover up his abuse and commercial sex.'
Notably, as the feds brought 34 witnesses — dozens of Combs Global staffers, hired sex workers and other key players — before the jury, Khorram's name remained absent from the witness list. But as testimony unfolded in the government's case, her name seemed to be lurking at every turn. She was there in name and spirit during the first week of testimony, when her monitoring and reporting back on Ventura's whereabouts and activities as Combs' trusted staffer was discussed; the R&B singer, who dated Combs until 2018, told the court how present 'KK' was as she detailed her and Combs' romance and how the relationship nosedived into physical abuse and, as she claimed, blackmail and coercive control. There's 'KK' again, in name but not beside her now ex-boss in week three of the trial, as evidence is entered of her texting with 'Mia,' the pseudonymous assistant to Combs, to talk her down from thoughts of suicide while ensuring she would not become a liability after being unceremoniously fired after years of service. (Now with hindsight on her time with Combs, 'Mia' told the jury that 'there was nobody around us that ever even flinched at his behavior.') The following week in court, 'KK' was metaphorically there, front and center again in discussions as 'Jane,' Combs' girlfriend until his arrest last year, told the court how the chief of staff downplayed the risk of transporting narcotics on a commercial flight to encourage her to do it for Combs' benefit.
In this manner, Khorram's name has haunted the entire trial. From small moments recalled in court where she's taking photos of texts on Combs' phone or when she's allegedly managing those procuring sex workers and drugs for his 'freak-off' parties, overseeing those cleaning up after the hotel nights or just intimidating underlings and enforcing a culture of secrecy, 'KK' was referenced more than two dozen times in the trial before the jaw-dropping moment on June 5, when prosecutors referred to her as a 'co-conspirator and agent' of Combs.
What did this mean? Would she be facing charges, proving the racketeering element of the feds' case or was she imminently taking the stand to testify? That last possibility is clearly not happening now that the prosecution has rested its case. But given Khorram's continued absence from the courtroom and the fact that no one has heard from her since March, when she broke her silence to adamantly deny claims made about her in three civil suits against her and Combs, this is the question that burns: Did she flip on him and work with the prosecution? Or is she now a sitting duck, possibly about to be charged for any of the myriad allegations the court and trial observers heard about over the past six weeks?
The Hollywood Reporter reached out to Khorram through the Music Beats Hearts nonprofit she helped found but has not received a response from her. Since Khorram issued her statement in March, no publication has been able to get a response from her attorney.
'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,' her March statement reads, in part. 'I have never condoned or aided and abetted the sexual assault of anyone. Nor have I ever drugged anyone.'
An important, and somewhat confusing, aspect of the racketeering charge Combs faces is that he is the lone accused party in a case that must prove a conspiracy. While this may seem counterintuitive, it's not uncommon in a RICO case, particularly now that prosecutors are getting creative, taking the statute designed to rope together organized crime syndicates to refer to various other alleged 'criminal enterprisers,' be they a cult (NXIVM, for sex trafficking) or a college admissions scam (the Varsity Blues scandal). In a case that has seen some comparisons to the Combs trial, singer R. Kelly became the only one convicted under RICO in his 2021 federal sex trafficking case; two men accused as co-conspirators were eventually acquitted. And as far as Combs' case, prosecutors must prove he used an entity as the vehicle to facilitate criminal activities over time, with him and only him facing racketeering charges.
'The prosecutor has broad discretion in terms of who they prosecute and what they prosecute them for,' Anna Cominsky, a professor at New York Law School, told The Hollywood Reporter. 'Keep in mind, just because someone wasn't prosecuted doesn't mean they didn't engage in criminal activity.'
Given Khorram's proximity to many of the allegations heard in court of happenings at Combs Global, it follows that if the axe were to fall on someone else, it's likely going to be his 'right-hand woman,' who Combs proclaimed in a 2021 Facebook post that he didn't 'know how I'd function without her.' Producer Lil' Rod Jones went as far as to compare 'KK' and Combs to Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, making a direct comparison between Maxwell and 'KK' in his explosive civil suit against Combs; that tenuous $30 million suit is one of three that names Khorram alongside Combs. While Epstein never made it to see a trial, having died in a federal lock-up, the timing of charges is notable and perhaps, something to watch for; it was notably just a hair under a full year after his indictment that the Department of Justice announced the charges against Maxwell. Combs was charged in September of 2024.
As the prosecution rested its case on Tuesday, 'KK,' the phantom of the trial, remained out of the picture entirely. The defense called no witnesses, and Combs opted not to take the stand. Though charges could come Khorram's way at any moment, there's a solid chance that she may not be formally accused of anything by the government. Speaking with THR, Cominsky laid out three reasons this could be the case.
One simple reason could be that Khorram quietly worked with the prosecutors in exchange for a non-prosecution agreement. At the time of her public denial of wrongdoing in March, rumors swirled that she would sing and the consensus seemed to be that throwing loyalty aside would be the smart thing for her to do. This was the case with multiple former Combs staffers who took the stand to tell the jury about his work and personal life. If she didn't work with the feds, Cominsky said, perhaps the statute of limitations for the alleged crimes she may or may not have been involved in has passed. But this is unlikely — she worked for Combs until his September arrest, and 'Jane' or 'Victim 4' was with Combs until then, too. Or perhaps, 'KK' is avoiding indictment because the case against her is too weak.
'The government has to analyze its evidence,' Cominsky said. 'Do they actually have evidence that would support a prosecution against the individual? If they do, then they can. But if they don't, they can't.'
In fact, any potential case against 'KK' might have been weakened by trial testimony, which has called into question how much Khorram actually knew about Combs' 'freak-off' parties and hotel night sex-and-drug marathons. Combs, it turns out, may have concealed from his top lieutenant the frequency of these nights- and days-long sessions, which are central to the government's case. As 'Jane' told the court, Combs knew Khorram didn't approve of the lengthy sessions because he'd disappear on everyone and productivity could grind to a halt.
As the jury is about to be handed the case against Combs, Khorram will remain the biggest absentee player in the trial while, for jurors forbidden from viewing related news coverage, she'll remain more of an idea than a person. This lack of testimony from someone so close to Combs could create an opening for the defense to plant a seed of doubt; if this is a conspiracy and criminal enterprise, where was 'K.K.'? Certainly no longer in the position of power she once held. And, while she's not facing any charges, the fate of her reputation will certainly, at least in part, be decided by the jurors in the coming days. And for the loyal, cutthroat right-hand woman, that sought-after reputation gained by association with a larger-than-life power player, one which she enjoyed for years, might now be impossible to shake off.
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