Day 3 of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal intercourse trafficking trial commenced with Cassie Ventura, his former girlfriend, being questioned by the prosecution. For the third consecutive day, the jury considered resort surveillance footage of Combs’s 2016 assault on Ventura and the occasions after the horrific incident.
Ventura testified that Combs threw a vase at her. “I didn’t get hit,” she stated. “I bear in mind it hitting the wall. He was yelling at me and threw it at me.” The prosecution confirmed two photographs of Ventura after the assault with a swollen lip and a black eye.
For the primary time, the jury noticed textual content messages that Combs despatched to Ventura following the resort assault. He continually texted her to contact him, saying “I obtained six children” and “pls name me.” Ventura responded that the premiere of The Excellent Match was the “greatest factor I’ve ever performed in my life,” and now she had a black eye and a fats lip. “Please keep far-off from me,” she texted again.
After the assault, one in every of Ventura’s associates contacted the police, and legislation enforcement got here to her residence. Though she answered a number of questions from the police, she didn’t title Combs because the perpetrator.
“Did you wish to defend Sean?” Assistant U.S. Legal professional Emily Johnson requested. “Yeah, in fact,” Ventura answered.
She went on to testify that Combs confirmed up at her residence “banging, kicking, yelling” at her door. Ventura additionally stated that Combs advised her that “if she didn’t choose up the cellphone, she’d by no means hear my voice once more.” When requested why she didn’t depart Combs sooner, Ventura stated, “It might escalate the combat extra, make it worse for myself.”
After viewing binders of photographs introduced by prosecutors, Ventura recognized 13 escorts that Combs requested her to recruit for “freak-offs” in Las Vegas, Miami and Los Angeles. Throughout her testimony, Ventura said that she had intercourse with all of them however couldn’t recall all of their names. Some she remembered have been Ash, Tommy, Greg, and a person who glided by the moniker “Islander.”
Within the aftermath of the “freak offs,” Ventura stated she took IV fluids, obtained massages, and had a chef prepare dinner meals. To deal with the state of affairs, Ventura stated she developed an opioid dependancy. “Opioids make me really feel numb, which is why I relied on them so closely,” she defined.
She additionally shared that she had frequent urinary tract infections from the “freak offs.” Following the sexual experiences, she stated she felt emotionally “simply actually empty and I felt simply gross,” however she additionally “felt like I did my job.”
On one event, one of many escorts who participated in “freak-offs” introduced his girlfriend, and Ventura stated she had intercourse with him at a intercourse membership by Combs’ request. He would usually attempt to persuade her to go together with him to intercourse golf equipment, which made her uncomfortable. She stated Combs saved pushing for it, saying, “It’d be a enjoyable factor to do, and we wouldn’t go for lengthy.”
In one other violent encounter, Ventura recalled in 2013, whereas packing to go to Canada for Drake’s music competition, Combs obtained into it with one in every of her associates and tossed her buddy right into a mattress body. Combs’ safety personnel took her to get stitches from a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. Following the incident, she stated she suffered a “fairly vital gash” above her left eye and now has a everlasting scar on her eyebrow from the assault. Ventura stated she texted Combs a picture of her injured face and wrote, “So you possibly can bear in mind.”
Ventura additionally testifies that Combs would “put his palms on me” throughout “freak-offs.” She recalled, “He would seize me up. Push me down. Hit me within the aspect of the pinnacle. Kick me. You title it.” Every now and then, an escort was conscious of the bodily abuse, she defined.
Ventura advised the courtroom that Combs confirmed movies of the “freak-offs” on his laptop computer that she thought have been deleted. Combs threaten to embarrass her and launch them. “I simply felt trapped,” Ventura testified.
Trying by way of extra textual content messages, Ventura learn one to the courtroom that she despatched to Sean Combs in 2017, voicing her displeasure with their sexual association. “Nothing good” comes out of “freak-offs” anymore,” she wrote. “You deal with me such as you’re Ike Turner,” she wrote, referring to Tina Turner’s abusive relationship along with her ex-husband. She famous that she made the comparability as a result of Combs was “abusive and controlling.”
After a short recess for lunch, Ventura testified that a number of staff of Combs noticed him bodily abuse her throughout their relationship. She stated Combs’ safety group, administration and assistants have been all witnesses to the assaults.
Though she admitted to instigating fights with Combs, Ventura stated that he was by no means injured. When he attacked her, it could be days of restoration.
She stated it was round 2007 or 2008 when Combs started to bodily abuse her. The primary incident occurred at a gaggle dinner after she witnessed him flirting with one other girl. Once they obtained into his Escalade, she stated, “he knocked me round and was simply actually imply” in entrance of the motive force and safety. She stated Combs hit her within the aspect of the pinnacle, knocking her to the ground of the automobile. “I used to be simply shocked,” she defined.
Ventura went on to say that she by no means advised her mother due to what she thought Combs would do. “I understood Sean’s capabilities, his entry to weapons, the threats he made earlier than that,” she stated. “I used to be privy… I didn’t inform my mother the reality as a result of I used to be ashamed,” she continued. “I additionally didn’t wish to put my mom in peril for figuring out something of that magnitude.”
On one event, Ventura recalled going to a celebration thrown by Prince in Los Angeles. Not telling Combs, she went along with her girlfriends, pondering he would say no. When Combs arrived on the celebration, “I ran out as quick as I might to the entrance yard,” Ventura stated. “I knew he was offended at me.” Of their resort room later that evening, she stated, “Combs beat her up and threw baggage at her.”
In 2011, Combs found she was courting rapper Child Cudi (Scott Mescudi) by wanting by way of her cellphone throughout a “freak-off” session. Stuffed with rage, he tried to assault her with a “wine bottle opener.” Combs threatened to harm her and Child Cudi and stated he would launch two specific “freak-off” movies of Ventura, she testified. Combs then attacked her at his residence. When she returned to the resort room the place she was staying, she found the room was destroyed and located urine and feces all around the rest room.
Finally, she ended the connection with Child Cudi as a result of it was too harmful. “An excessive amount of hazard, an excessive amount of uncertainty of what might occur if we continued to see one another,” Ventura stated. She additionally stated that Combs threatened to explode Child Kudi’s automobile along with his associates watching. Ventura says that Combs needed Mescudi’s associates to be current when it occurred.
In accordance with Ventura, Combs bodily abused others of their circle, together with staff and assistants. She stated he dragged one other girl often known as “Mia” or “Sufferer-4” off the bed as soon as on a visit. Ventura stated Combs dangled a buddy over the balcony of an residence after which threw her onto patio furnishings. Ventura’s civil lawsuit referred to this incident, and in one other lawsuit filed by Bryana Bongolan, often known as “Bana.”
Ventura detailed dropping her greatest buddy of 17 years after Combs attacked the lady in 2018. When he noticed them about to do medicine collectively, he hit the lady with a picket hanger over her head. Ventura stated that she settled her 2023 lawsuit towards Combs sooner or later after it was filed for $20 million after she accused him of rape and bodily abuse.
When requested why she determined to testify towards Combs, Ventura stated, “I can’t carry this anymore. I can’t carry the disgrace, the guilt.”
It was shared that months earlier than her 2023 settlement, Ventura despatched Combs chapters of a e-book she had written detailing their relationship. On the time, she had an lawyer attain out to his group for a $30 million payout for the rights to her story. Ventura confirmed this on the stand. “I needed to be compensated for the time, the ache,” Ventura stated. Mr. Combs’s legal professionals have described Ms. Ventura’s try and promote the e-book rights as “extortion” in courtroom papers.
As she fought by way of tears, Ventura stated she started writing a e-book about her time with Combs whereas she was in rehab as “trauma remedy” with the assistance of her mom. “I actually needed Sean to learn the knowledge. I needed him to grasp what I needed to be taught to grasp over that interval,” she defined. She by no means obtained compensation from Combs for the e-book.
In whole, Ventura estimated that she participated in tons of of “freak-offs” with Sean Combs. They broke up in 2018.
Throughout her testimony, Ventura recalled having “horrible flashbacks” when she was taking pictures a music video in 2023. She stated she advised her husband at residence that, “You are able to do this with out me. You don’t want me right here anymore,” and that she couldn’t “Take the ache anymore.” She stated, “Tried to stroll out the entrance door into visitors, and my husband wouldn’t let me.” Following the incident, Cassie started rehab and trauma remedy.
As Ventura’s testimony concluded for the day, the jurors have been despatched residence. On Thursday, she will likely be cross-examined by the protection group. Marc Agnifilo, Combs’ lawyer, stated infidelity can be a serious a part of his line of questioning that may final till Friday. “Now we have worn our protection on our sleeves because the first bail listening to,” Agnifilo stated. “All people is aware of we’re going to deliver up infidelity and textual content messages of infidelity.”
After Ventura completed her testimony, Combs turned to his relations assembled within the viewers and stated, “I’m OK.”
Day 4 of the trial begins on Thursday at 9:30 AM.