R&B artist Cassie Ventura’s film premiere was days away in March 2016 when her then-boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs texted her asking what she was doing.
She already felt “trapped” in a cycle of bodily and sexual abuse by him, she informed a New York federal jury this week, outlining 11 years of alleged beatings, sexual blackmail and a rape.
She claimed Combs threatened to leak movies of her sexual encounters with quite a few male intercourse staff whereas drug-intoxicated and glistening with child oil as he watched and orchestrated the occasions, often called freak-offs.
“If I happy him with a freak-off, then my premiere would run easily,” she mentioned, in accordance with reporting from contained in the Manhattan courtroom from the Related Press.
What occurred subsequent may find yourself being the start of the top of Combs’ public life.
Video footage from that March 2016 evening reveals Combs punching and kicking Ventura as she cowers and tries to guard herself in entrance of an L.A. resort elevator financial institution. He then drags her down the corridor by her hooded sweatshirt towards their resort room. A second angle from one other digicam captures Combs throwing a vase towards her. She suffered bruising to her eye, a fats lip, and a bruise that prosecutors confirmed was nonetheless seen through the film premiere two days later. She donned sun shades and heavy make-up on the pink carpet.
Ventura’s testimony is on the heart of the federal trial accusing Combs of racketeering conspiracy, intercourse trafficking, and transportation for prostitution.
Sweeping allegations
The federal indictment alleges that Combs and his associates lured feminine victims, usually beneath the pretense of a romantic relationship. Combs then allegedly used pressure, threats of pressure, coercion and managed substances to get girls to have interaction in intercourse acts with male prostitutes whereas he often watched in gatherings that Combs known as “freak-offs.” Combs gave the ladies ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to “preserve them obedient and compliant” through the performances.
The freak-offs, which prosecutors say typically lasted for days, had been elaborately produced intercourse performances that Combs organized, directed, masturbated throughout, and sometimes recorded, in accordance with the indictment. Prosecutors allege in a detention memo filed in court docket that the freak-offs occurred often from at the least 2009 by 2023 and that the resort rooms the place they had been staged usually sustained vital injury.
Combs’ alleged “prison enterprise” threatened and abused girls and utilized members of his enterprise to have interaction in intercourse trafficking, pressured labor, interstate transportation for functions of prostitution, coercion and enticement to have interaction in prostitution, narcotics offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice, prosecutors mentioned. In bringing so-called RICO fees, prosecutors in opening statements mentioned Combs was helped by cadre of firm staff, safety workers and aides. They allegedly helped set up the crime and “freak-offs” after which coated up the incidents. To this point, Combs is the one one going through prison fees associated to the investigation.
Combs’ lawyer this week mentioned her consumer was removed from excellent however that the fees had been overblown.
“Sean Combs is a sophisticated man. However this isn’t a sophisticated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and cash,” Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos informed jurors. “There was an incredible quantity of noise round this case over the previous yr. It’s time to cancel that noise.”
How Ventura and Combs met
Jurors heard that Ventura was 19 when she met the 37-year-old Combs in 2005, and he or she signed a 10-year contract together with his Dangerous Boy Data label. About two years later, he had Britney Spears come to her twenty first birthday celebration, the place Ventura and Combs kissed and their relationship started, she mentioned. She testified that the freak-offs turned a lifestyle, and he or she even stepped away from her personal birthday celebration for one.
Cassie Ventura, left, and Sean “Diddy” Combs arrive on the Los Angeles premiere of “Can’t Cease, Received’t Cease: A Dangerous Boy Story” on the Writers Guild Theater on June 21, 2017, in Beverly Hills.
(Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP)
Combs, she informed jurors, required her to let a male intercourse employee urinate in her mouth. That man and others had been paid 1000’s of {dollars} to have intercourse repeatedly for 36 to 48 hours, she informed the jury.
On the stand, Ventura recognized 13 male intercourse staff by photographs offered by prosecutors that she mentioned Combs’ had her recruit for the freak-offs. Hers and Combs’ relationship would finish on a day in 2018 when she met him for dinner and he raped her on her lounge ground, she testified.
Violence
Throughout 4 days of testimony, Ventura, who’s eight and a half months pregnant, described being raped, overwhelmed at the least six occasions, most severely in 2009.
Within the 2009 assault, she testified that Combs was “stomping” on her face after he found she was courting rapper Child Cudi. Child Cudi, whose actual identify is Scott Mescudi, had his automobile torched a short while afterward. Prosecutors allege in court docket papers that Combs ordered it.
Authorized evaluation
Authorized consultants say the testimony is designed to construct the federal case in opposition to Combs, even when on the floor it doesn’t seem immediately associated to the fees he’s going through.
“Why is the federal government speaking about rape and assault when the fees are RICO and intercourse trafficking?” mentioned former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani. Nicely, he mentioned, “what separates intercourse trafficking from consensual intercourse between adults — which the protection is arguing — is pressure, fraud or coercion.”
“Ventura’s testimony that she was given medicine to the purpose of throwing up … and compelled to have intercourse when she was menstruating or had a UTI is proof of coercion,” he mentioned.
Rahmani mentioned that Ventura’s portrayal of Combs as a gun-brandishing mogul who beat her on a number of events, tracked her actions and despatched a safety group to seek out her is proof of pressure.
Then there have been the alleged threats. She recounted that in a business flight in 2013, Combs pulled out his laptop computer and started enjoying a freak-off recording as they sat collectively. She mentioned Combs informed her that he was going to embarrass her and launch them.
“I feared for my profession. I feared for my household. It’s simply embarrassing. It’s horrible and disgusting. Nobody ought to try this to anybody,” Ventura mentioned.
Authorities raid Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Los Angeles residence as a part of an ongoing intercourse trafficking investigation
(Eric Thayer / Related Press)
Rahmani mentioned the racketeering cost in opposition to Combs requires prosecutors to show the existence of a prison enterprise.
“Individuals usually consider the mob, road gangs, or drug cartels, however any unfastened affiliation of two or extra folks is sufficient like Combs’ entourage,” the previous federal prosecutor mentioned. They need to present two or extra predicate acts over 10 years.
“That’s the reason the proof of bribery, kidnapping, obstruction, witness tampering and prostitution is vital,” he mentioned.
LAPD officer testimony
Israel Florez, a resort safety guard who confronted Combs in 2016, now a Los Angeles Police officer, testified Combs flashed a bundle of money at him — one thing he believed was an tried bribe. He rejected it, he mentioned.
Combs’ protection is searching for to color Ventura as taking part within the habits, recruiting and paying intercourse companions, buying narcotics and texting to push for freak-offs that had been a part of a swingers’ life-style. She is one in all 4 alleged victims within the case, with jurors anticipated to listen to from at the least three of them.
On Thursday, protection lawyer Anne Estevao had Ventura learn a collection of loving texts to Combs and acquired Ventura to testify she’d watched Combs have intercourse with one other lady on a number of events. To assist the swingers’ protection, the lawyer produced a 2009 textual content the place the singer declared, “I’m all the time able to freak off.”
Ventura sued Combs within the fall of 2023, accusing him of years of bodily and sexual abuse, triggering a cascade of lawsuits and allegations by others who say they’re victims of Combs and ultimately, a raid by Homeland Safety on his L.A. and Miami houses and his arrest. Ventura acknowledged Wednesday that she acquired a $20-million settlement inside days of submitting her lawsuit.
Combs lawyer pushes again
Throughout opening statements in a Manhattan federal courtroom, Geragos, one in all Combs’ protection attorneys, drew a distinction for jurors between the violence they’d hear testimony about and the fees Combs was going through, saying “home violence will not be intercourse trafficking.”
She mentioned the video of Ventura’s assault within the resort was indefensible, however that the singer “made a selection” to stick with Combs for 11 years.
After the assault, a buddy referred to as police to Ventura’s residence, she testified. However when officers arrived, she didn’t determine Combs because the perpetrator.
The prosecutor requested her why she didn’t discuss. “In that second, I didn’t need to damage him that method. I wasn’t prepared,” she replied.
On Thursday, the protection cross-examining Ventura sought to alter the narrative utilizing dozens of textual content messages between Combs and Ventura. In a July 2013 textual content message trade, Comb’s protection lawyer famous that Cassie raised the concept of getting a “freak-off,” writing to Combs: “Want we may’ve FO’d earlier than you left.”
Utilizing the textual content message exchanges, the protection lawyer highlighted Ventura’s admitted jealousy over the eye he gave different girls.
“You’re making me seem like a facet piece and that isn’t what I assumed I used to be,” Cassie informed Combs in a 2013 textual content message.
Estevao tried to recast the resort incident as the results of the 2 taking a “dangerous batch” of the psychedelic stimulant MDMA throughout a “freak-off” earlier than the resort beating.
Throughout her testimony this week, Ventura testified that Combs allegedly overdosed on opioids whereas partying on the Playboy Mansion in 2012. Whereas she wasn’t there, she mentioned, he informed her about it.
Ventura’s testimony ended on Friday.
The Related Press contributed court docket testimony for this evaluation.
