Music mogul and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs arrives on the Billboard Music Awards, Might 15, 2022, in Las Vegas.
Jordan Strauss/Invision through AP
disguise caption
toggle caption
Jordan Strauss/Invision through AP
This report accommodates descriptions of bodily and sexual violence.
Throughout cross-examination Thursday, Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura detailed within the federal intercourse trafficking and racketeering trial in opposition to hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs their group sexual encounters, the extent of their drug use and her personal emotions towards Combs.
Thursday marked the fourth day of the New York trial in opposition to Combs. Ventura continued her testimony in which she has alleged a sample of of sexual coercion, drugging and bodily abuse.
Combs faces three primary expenses of intercourse trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation for prostitution. Combs’ protection denies he dedicated these crimes.
Protection highlighted texts of Ventura serving to plan ‘freak-offs’
One in all Combs’ protection attorneys, Anna Estevao, tried to ascertain that there was a loving relationship between the pair, and that Ventura anticipated and deliberate a number of the “freak-offs.” Ventura has described these occasions as ones during which Combs instructed Ventura to take varied medicine and employed male prostitutes for her to have intercourse with whereas he watched.
The protection relied on textual content messages between the pair of Ventura saying she “cannot wait both” for the “freak-off,” she’s “all the time able to FO” and that she enjoys them when “we each need it.” The texts additionally reference Ventura selecting rooms, provides and escorts.
Ventura mentioned the texts had been “simply phrases.”
She mentioned earlier in her testimony that she did typically provoke the acts out of worry, and would do her greatest to do “harm management” so she would know after they had been taking place. She additionally mentioned she beloved him and tried to make him blissful. Ventura mentioned most of her time was spent having a “freak-off” or recovering from one. If she refused, Combs would change into violent, Ventura has mentioned.
She mentioned Thursday the “freak-offs” had been like a job and he or she hated them, particularly when Combs recorded them.
Combs’ legal professional referenced Combs having withdrawal signs from opiates
The protection questioned Ventura about Combs’ mind-set throughout a few of his violent episodes, however didn’t explicitly hyperlink the 2.
In opening statements, Combs’ attorneys admitted Combs’ wrongdoing in a 2016 video launched final 12 months by CNN. Combs is proven following Ventura down the hallway of a resort, throwing her to the bottom, kicking, dragging and hitting her.
On Thursday, Ventura mentioned the 2 used medicine extensively all through their relationship, and Combs tried to get them to cease at a number of factors, however by no means by way of a rehabilitation facility.
She added he would usually undergo withdrawal signs, equivalent to irritability, however didn’t know whether or not he was inebriated in the course of the incident proven on the resort video.
Protection requested Ventura about feeling jealous throughout her relationship with Combs
In opening statements earlier this week, protection legal professional Teny Geragos referred to as this a case of “jealousy and infidelity.”
On Thursday, Estevao mentioned Combs was usually seeing varied girls and Ventura usually complained about not being the “primary girlfriend.”
Ventura mentioned it bothered her that she and Combs weren’t public the primary few years of their relationship, and that Combs was additionally nonetheless concerned with Kim Porter, the mom to a number of of Combs’ kids.
Estevao added that Ventura needed the connection to be extra about simply intercourse. In a 2009 textual content, Ventura mentioned Combs handled her like she was only a particular person to “get your fantasies off with and that is it.”
In 11 years collectively, Ventura mentioned she by no means felt totally a part of a household with Combs and his seven kids.
She additionally mentioned it was usually anticipated for her to be monogamous to Combs, however not the opposite approach round. Ventura mentioned she began courting rapper Child Cudi when she and Combs had been damaged up, however that she ended it in lower than a month when Combs started threatening him. In 2023, Cudi advised The New York Occasions his automotive exploded in his driveway across the time he was seeing Ventura.
NPR’s Isabella Gomez Sarmiento contributed to this report.
