NOTE: The following article comprises disturbing particulars and video footage. Please learn at your personal discretion.
As the intercourse trafficking trial for Sean “Diddy” Combs enters its third day, Combs’ ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, took the stand Wednesday to renew her testimony after a day spent recounting grotesque and humiliating particulars of her life with him.
Ventura is taken into account a star witness for the prosecution and her testimony is especially priceless. Combs was captured on safety video violently assaulting Ventura in a lodge hallway in 2016.
Ventura sued Combs in 2023, alleging years of rape and abuse. The go well with was settled inside hours, however was adopted by dozens of comparable authorized claims and touched off a felony investigation.
During her first day of testimony, on the second day of the blockbuster trial, Ventura described being pressured into degrading sexual encounters with paid intercourse staff. She additionally recounted being overwhelmed quite a few instances by Combs when she did issues that displeased him — like smiling at him the mistaken approach.
“You make the wrong face and the next thing I knew I was getting hit in the face,” she stated.
Ventura accused Combs of gaining her subservience by threatening to publicly launch movies of her with male intercourse staff.
Combs’ legal professionals have acknowledged the rapper might be violent however preserve that the sexual acts have been consensual. They say nothing he did amounted to intercourse trafficking or racketeering (the costs he faces), however insisted he simply has distinctive sexual proclivities.
Day 3
Ventura returned to the witness stand shortly earlier than 10 a.m. on Wednesday throughout Combs’ sex-trafficking trial, answering questions posed by prosecutor Emily Johnson for a second day.
For a 3rd day in a row, the jury watched the lodge surveillance footage of Combs’ 2016 assault on Ventura however the video had no sound. She stated she recalled Combs throwing a vase with flowers in it.
“I didn’t get hit. I remember it hitting the wall. He was yelling at me and threw it at me,” she stated.
Ventura stated that as she was making an attempt to go away the lodge, Combs advised her “that I wasn’t going to leave him there. That I couldn’t.”
The prosecution confirmed two images of Ventura following the lodge assault and textual content messages between the previous couple.
Ventura stated that she took selfies on her Uber experience away from the lodge. She had a swollen lip and testified that beneath her sun shades, she had a black eye.
Combs texted Ventura after the assault and stated, “the cops are here,” begging her to name him. In response to Combs, Ventura stated that she had a film premiere for “the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life” and now she had a “fat lip” and black eye.
“Please stay far away from me,” she texted him.
Ventura stated Combs claimed police have been about to arrest him and advised her if she didn’t reply his telephone calls she’d “never hear my voice again.”
Ventura’s pal referred to as the police following the assault and so they confirmed as much as her house to query her, however she stated that she didn’t wish to say who assaulted her.
“Did you want to protect Sean?” Johnson requested.
“Yeah, of course,” Venture replied. “In that moment, I didn’t want to hurt him that way. I wasn’t ready.”
Ventura stated that after the assault, Combs confirmed as much as her house and she or he heard “chaos outside of the door” together with “banging, kicking, yelling.”
She stated that she went to the house of one among Combs’ safety guards, D-Roc, not too lengthy after the assault “to feel safe.” She then went to Combs’ home to do a becoming for her upcoming transfer premiere for a romantic comedy she starred in referred to as The Perfect Match.
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The premiere passed off two days after the lodge assault and the jury was proven a photograph of Combs and Ventura on the afterparty. She identified bruises on her physique that have been seen within the pictures and stated she was unable to cowl up all of the injury with make-up.
The prosecution confirmed a 2016 textual content message from Combs to Ventura in regards to the freak-offs. He proposed they’ve a “proper” freak-off with out the drug ketamine concerned.
In a textual content message, he wrote {that a} “successful” freak-off was “when we remember.”
“I won’t bring up again until you are in that mood,” he wrote.
Ventura advised the courtroom ketamine was her most well-liked drug through the freak-offs as a result of “it was very dissociative.”
She then mentioned how movies of the freak-offs have been become “blackmail materials.” She stated that when Combs was offended along with her, he usually reminded her of the sexually specific movies he had saved.
“One time I dated someone else and that’s what it was all about — ‘I’m going to put out two embarrassing videos of you,’” she stated, including that she believed Combs “just wanted to hurt me.”
She stated the movies might spoil every little thing she’d labored for and “make me look like a slut.”
“I feared for my career. I feared for my family. It’s just embarrassing. It’s horrible and disgusting. No one should do that to anyone,” she stated.
In a 2013 textual content message, she wrote to Combs: “Please delete any video out of your iPhone if you have. Too many ppl have access to your stuff.”
Combs advised her that he had deleted them however there have been instances of their relationship that she stated she noticed the movies he claimed to have deleted.
When Johnson requested Ventura if she ever tried to struggle again when Combs picked a struggle along with her, she stated she tried earlier of their relationship however discovered “it could escalate the fight more, make it worse for myself.”
Ventura testified that she had an “off-and-on” dependancy to opiates. She stated she took them to come back down off celebration medicine, together with ecstasy, which she stated she’d use throughout freak-offs.
“Opiates made me feel numb, which is why I relied on them so heavily,” she advised the courtroom, including, “I didn’t want to feel what was actually going on in my mind, in my life, in real time. It was just an escape for me.”
She additionally testified that she had persistent urinary tract infections (UTIs) when she and Combs have been having freak-offs. She stated she would proceed to participate within the freak-offs regardless of the infections, calling the ache “horrible.”
In one other textual content message between Ventura and Combs, she advised him that she had sores on her tongue. Ventura advised the courtroom that she thought the sores have been from taking medicine and performing oral intercourse through the freak-offs.
Combs responded to Ventura, writing, “I’m sorry.”
After freak-offs, Ventura stated, she felt emotionally “just really empty and I felt gross.” She additionally stated she “felt like I did my job.”
Ventura stated that Combs would “put his hands on me” throughout freak-offs with different male escorts.
“He would grab me up. Push me down. Hit me in the side of the head. Kick me. You name it,” Ventura stated.
On one event in 2013, whereas packing to go to Drake’s OVO music competition in Toronto, Ventura stated Combs “attacked” her mates and threw her right into a mattress body.
She stated when Combs went to “attack” her, her mates “jumped on his back.”
Venture stated she suffered a “pretty significant gash” above her left eye, and Combs’ safety introduced her to a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills to get the wound stitched up.
She texted Combs a photograph of her damage after and wrote: “So you can remember.”
“You don’t know when to stop. You pushed it too far. And continued to push. Sad,” Combs replied.
Ventura stated that she has a everlasting scar on her eyebrow from the 2013 altercation.
She additionally spoke about attending the Cannes Film Festival in 2013 and revealed that Combs had kicked her off the yacht they have been staying on after getting right into a struggle.
Combs accused Ventura of taking medicine from him and made her depart the boat with out footwear, her passport and different belongings.
She stated she ended up staying at a lodge the place Combs’ workers have been staying.
She testified that after they have been on a airplane getting back from the competition, Combs pulled up freak-off movies on his laptop computer and advised her that he was going to “embarrass” her “and release them.”
“I just felt trapped,” she advised the courtroom.
After the airplane landed in New York, she stated, Combs stated he wished to have a freak-off.
“At that point, whatever was going to make him not be angry at me and threatening me, I was willing to do,” she stated. “I just didn’t want to feel scared anymore. It was the one thing he made me feel like I was good at.”
Ventura learn a textual content message she despatched to Combs in 2017, during which she wrote that “nothing good” comes out of the freak-offs.
“You treat me like you’re Ike Turner,” she wrote, referring to Tina Turner’s former husband, who was bodily abusive in the direction of the singer.
There was dialogue between prosecutors and the choose about exhibiting sealed proof to solely the jurors, legal professionals and Ventura whereas utilizing privateness screens.
The prosecutor stated movies of Ventura concerned in sexual conditions wouldn’t be proven throughout direct examination nevertheless it’s unclear whether or not the defence will present the footage.
Ventura was proven 5 pictures from freak-offs that solely she and the jury might see.
In one of many pictures, Ventura recognized a future witness for the prosecution who has been known as “Mia,” however is listed in courtroom paperwork as “Victim-4.”
Ventura additionally recognized pictures of herself having sexual contact with “Jules,” “Dave” and “Greg,” three of the escorts she has referred to in her testimony.
She stated the pictures have been taken from movies that have been saved on an digital gadget that she thought was damaged, however was turned over to the federal government as proof.
Ventura stated that a number of workers of Combs witnessed him abusing her over the course of their relationship. She testified that one assistant advised her they give up due to the best way Combs handled her.
She conceded that she initiated bodily fights with Combs at instances throughout their relationship, however claimed he was not injured throughout these fights. Ventura added that when Combs was bodily along with her, there could be bruises that will require her to cover out as a way to stop anybody from seeing them.
What he’s on trial for
U.S. prosecutors allege that for 20 years, behind the scenes, Combs was coercing and abusing ladies with assist from a community of associates who helped silence victims via blackmail and violence.
Combs faces an indictment that features descriptions of freak-offs, that are outlined within the courtroom doc as “elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded.”
Numerous witnesses have come ahead to accuse Combs of terrorizing individuals into silence by choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, based on prosecutors. One indictment alleges that Combs dangled somebody from a balcony.
Although dozens of women and men have alleged in lawsuits that Combs abused them, this trial will spotlight the claims of 4 ladies.
Combs is charged with intercourse trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to have interaction in prostitution. He has denied all the costs in opposition to him and has rejected a plea deal, selecting to go to trial as a substitute.
If discovered responsible within the New York courtroom, he might face life in jail.
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Global News might be masking the Diddy trial in its entirety. Please verify again for updates.
— With information from Global News’ Michelle Butterfield and The Associated Press
