Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial day 2: Cassie delivers harrowing testimony about ‘freak-offs’

R&B singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura took the stand Tuesday as the prosecution’s star witness in Sean “Diddy” Combs’s federal sex trafficking trial, delivering explosive and emotional testimony with detailed allegations of physical, sexual and psychological abuse by the music mogul during their 10-year romantic relationship.

Her appearance at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan US Courthouse in Manhattan marked a dramatic moment in the US Government’s case against Combs, who is charged with five criminal counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs seemed to closely watch his former girlfriend as she was sworn in by Judge Arun Subramanian and addressed the jury for the first time. Ms Ventura appeared to have no interest in returning his gaze. The producer has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted on all counts.

During her testimony, Ms Ventura recounted her time with Combs - beginning with what she considered an inappropriate kiss from him when he was her boss at the start of her career, and continuing into a years-long relationship in which she alleges he abused her physically and emotionally, and sexually assaulted and trafficked her. She also testified that Combs coerced her into participating in “freak-offs” - days-long drug- and sex-fueled parties with male escorts, which Combs allegedly filmed and directed down to the smallest details.

Ventura shares graphic details of alleged freak-offs

Ms Ventura, who appeared in court visibly pregnant with her and husband Alex Fine’s third child, spent much of her testimony sharing graphic accounts of the freak-offs, which have been central to the prosecution’s case that Combs used his massive influence in the industry to turn people into sexual puppets. Though mostly composed, Ms Ventura sometimes paused and breathed heavily between questions, occasionally dabbing her eyes and nose with a tissue.

According to her testimony, Combs “choreographed” what people wore and whom they had sex with at the parties, and took direct control over every aspect - including the use of lubricants, candles, linens and room temperature settings. Ms Ventura added that the freak-offs, in which she was instructed to have sex with male escorts while Combs watched, could last for two or three days at a time and happened in hotel rooms in New York City, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, Turks and Caicos, and Ibiza.

Her first experience in such an event occurred when she was 22. Ms Ventura said she was confused and nervous, but she didn’t feel she had much choice but to participate. The freak-off, which allegedly featured drugs and alcohol at a Los Angeles home Combs was renting, involved a male escort whose photo was shown to the jury as Ms Ventura spoke.

“I understood him to be a dancer,” she said. “He was paid to entertain, to dance and to have intercourse with me.”

After that, she testified that Combs involved her in freak-offs weekly for a period of years, until about 2017 or 2018. She said it would be impossible to remember every freak-off in which she participated because of the frequency of the events and the drugs she took to disassociate, which included GHB, ketamine, mushrooms and ecstasy. She was also given drugs like cocaine to stay awake, she said, since Combs wouldn’t allow her to sleep. “It just felt like it was all I was good for to him,” Ms Ventura said, her voice breaking. “I was humiliated.”

She began crying as she recalled feeling good about getting “one-on-one time” with Combs during the parties. “It was the only time I could get” with him, she added.

Describing herself as “naive” and a “total people-pleaser,” she said she was afraid of making Combs angry or uncomfortable with a rejection.

Later, Ms Ventura feared that she would be blackmailed with videos and images of her participation in the freak-offs, as well as threatened with violence. “He had many resources” to spread those images on the internet, she said. “It was always in the back of my mind that I would somehow be hurt by him. … Sean is a really polarising person, also very charming. So it’s hard to be able to decide in that moment what you need when he’s telling you what he wants.”

Combs controlled much of her life, she said. “The freak-offs became a job. … There was no space to do anything else.”

Ventura details early relationship with Combs

Ms Ventura’s testimony also recounted her first interactions with Combs in early 2006 - when she was 19 and newly signed to a 10-album deal with his label, Bad Boy Records.

“I wanted to be around Sean for the same reasons as everyone else at the time - this exciting, entertaining, fun guy who also happened to have my career in his hands,” Ms Ventura said. “It felt special because not a lot of people got that time with him.”

Around her 21st birthday, Ms Ventura said, Combs kissed her in a hotel suite. She said she was confused, cried and ran off. As a new artist, she added, she “didn’t know the lay of the land” and wasn’t used to an executive acting in a sexual and romantic way.

She traced the beginning of her romantic relationship with Combs to a trip the pair took to Miami a few months after her 21st birthday. It was the first time they had sex, Ms Ventura said, and the first time she “intentionally” took ecstasy. After that, “we were just together,” she said. “I’d become one of his girlfriends after that trip.”

At the time, Ms Ventura thought they might be in a monogamous relationship. She recalled being “enamoured” with Combs in these early days. “I really fell in love with him,” she said, describing herself as a “little shadow” who followed him around.

But as the relationship went on, Combs exercised more control over Ms Ventura’s life, such as how she looked, whom she was speaking to and what she was working on that day, she testified.

She said he was an “incessant caller” - and would have staff, assistants and security continuously pester her “until he found you.” Ms Ventura described recording “hundreds” of songs over the span of her relationship with Combs - enough to make up nine albums for her 10-record deal with his label. None of the albums were released, Ms Ventura said.

She received no compensation for her work and her career stalled, she added.

Accusations of physical and emotional abuse

Ms Ventura testified that Combs was controlling and grew physically abusive within the first year of their relationship.

When Ms Ventura ignored him, he would call constantly and sometimes send a security agent or trusted assistant to her home, she said. It was part of Combs’s security staff’s job, Ms Ventura added, to keep an eye on her.

She also testified that arguments with Combs would often end in physical abuse. “He would … knock me over, drag me, kick me, stomp me in the head if I was down,” Ms Ventura said.

Her first day of testimony wrapped with the prosecution replaying footage of Combs physically assaulting Ms Ventura at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown hotel in 2016.

Ms Ventura said she was participating in a freak-off that day when Combs became violent. “After he hit me and I saw the result of it, I knew I had to get out,” she testified, adding that she wanted to appear in decent shape because she had a big movie premiere the following day.

“The next thing I knew, I was just thrown to the ground. It was really fast,” Ms Ventura said, as she watched footage of the incident.

When asked why she stayed on the ground as Combs kicked her, she replied, “because it felt like the safest place to be.”

Much of Ms Ventura’s testimony on Tuesday rehashed the allegations of physical and sexual abuse she made against Combs in a 35-page lawsuit in November 2023 that first triggered his legal troubles. The complaint was settled a day after it was filed, but Combs now faces more than 70 sexual assault lawsuits and has been in federal custody since his arrest in September. Combs has denied all the allegations.

On Wednesday, Ms Ventura will continue testimony before the defence begins its cross-examination. Lawyers for Combs are expected to argue that her romantic and sexual relationship with Combs was consensual and mutually violent.

“There was hitting on both sides,” defence attorney Marc Agnifilo said in court on Friday. “We’re going to take the position that there was mutual violence in the relationship. We’re 100 percent going to take that position.”

On Monday, defence attorney Teny Geragos told jurors that Ms Ventura was “extremely jealous” over Combs’s ongoing romantic relationship with Kim Porter, the mother of several of Combs’s children. (Porter died of pneumonia in 2018.)

Combs’s mother Janice and his six adult children were present in the courtroom for most, if not all, of Ventura’s testimony.

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