MIAMI — The parties often took place in some of Miami’s most luxurious hotels: the Mandarin Oriental, with sweeping views of Biscayne Bay; the 1 Hotel, on the white sands of South Beach; and the fabled Fontainebleau, the iconic landmark hotel that symbolizes the timeless elegance of Old Miami.

But what is alleged to have happened in these lavish hotel rooms — not just in Miami, but also in five-star hotels in Atlanta, New York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles — were sex parties so brutal that the young women and men lured into attending them would often vomit and pass out from being drugged, beaten and raped, sometimes for hours on end.

Several lawsuits filed over the past six months allege that flamboyant music producer Sean “Diddy” Combs called these self-styled bacchanals “Freak-Offs,” or “F.O.s” The gatherings were specially arranged for his hedonistic appetite — and according to the lawsuits — Combs often filmed the encounters as he directed his staff to change the lighting or bedding to better display the women and men who performed for him sexually.

Dangled over hotel balcony

One of his alleged victims was Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, an aspiring young R&B singer who met Combs when she was 19 and he was 37. As a founder of Bad Boys Records, he helped promote her career, then forced her into years of physical and sexual servitude, Ventura alleges in a lawsuit she filed against the megastar in November in Manhattan federal court.

At one of the hotel parties, she claims a drunken Combs beat her, then later, picked up one of the women in the hotel suite as if she were a child and dangled her over the 17th floor balcony of the unidentified hotel. There were other assaults at hotels around the country, according to the lawsuit, and Combs often paid the hotels tens of thousands of dollars for damages — and to take possession of any security footage that may have captured his violent behavior, the lawsuits claim.

One day after Ventura filed the lawsuit, which garnered international attention, the rapper settled it for an undisclosed sum. Combs noted that the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing.

But the horrifying allegations opened the floodgates to more lawsuits — and ultimately, a federal sex trafficking investigation that led agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to search Combs’ estates in Miami Beach and Los Angeles on Monday. Federal investigators were concerned that Diddy, 54, would destroy evidence, prompting them to obtain search warrants, a source familiar with the investigation told the Miami Herald.

Combs, through his attorney, denies all the allegations against him — and he has not been charged with a crime. He was briefly questioned by authorities at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport on Monday, then allowed to leave the country with family and friends on a private jet.

A plane linked to him was in the Caribbean island of Antigua and Barbuda on Tuesday, but two high-ranking government sources there told the Herald there was no record that he entered the country. His plane was spotted at the Opa Locka airport Wednesday, according to photos from local TV stations.

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