NOTE: The following article incorporates disturbing particulars and video footage. Please learn at your individual discretion.
As the intercourse trafficking trial for Sean “Diddy” Combs enters its fourth day, Combs’ ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, is on the stand to face cross-examination from Combs’ attorneys.
The R&B singer testified Wednesday that Combs raped her when she ended their decade-long relationship, and he or she described a life locked in bodily abuse, which she says she couldn’t depart after he threatened to launch degrading sexual movies of her.
She mentioned the movies might destroy every thing she’d labored for. “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 mentioned.
Ventura additionally spoke about an alleged incident in 2011 when Combs found that she had begun relationship rapper Kid Cudi, whose actual title is Scott Mescudi.
Combs, she mentioned, went by Ventura’s cellphone and lunged at her with a “wine bottle opener” after he learn textual content messages between the 2.
Ventura testified that she ended issues with Mescudi following Combs’ threats towards them on the finish of 2011. “Too much danger, too much uncertainty of what could happen if we continued to see each other,” she mentioned.
Ventura mentioned that Combs threatened to explode Mescudi’s automobile and that he wished Mescudi’s associates to be there when it occurred.
Combs’ attorneys have acknowledged the rapper may very well be violent however keep that the sexual acts had been consensual. They say nothing he did amounted to intercourse trafficking or racketeering (the fees he faces), however insisted he simply has distinctive sexual proclivities.
Day 4
Ventura, who’s within the third trimester of being pregnant, returned to the witness stand in a black go well with that seemed nearly like a tuxedo with a light-coloured shirt beneath.
Anna Estevao, a lawyer for Combs, opened her cross-examination by asking about her relationship with Combs. “You and Sean Combs were in love for 11 years. You loved him and believed that he loved you as well?” she requested.
“Yes,” Ventura replied.
Estevao continued to ask Ventura questions with “yes/no” responses about their relationship.
The first displays launched by Estevao had been textual content messages exchanged between Combs and Ventura within the early years of their relationship. In one, Combs wrote, “I’m truly a lucky man.” Ventura wrote again: “I’m a very lucky woman. … Love you so much.”
In one 2008 e-mail, Ventura informed Combs she was a fortunate lady. “I love you sooo much,” she wrote after Combs thanked her for flying to Atlanta to be with him.
In August 2009, in a message despatched by Combs, the rapper informed her: “I love you sooooo much it makes me cry.”
Ventura replied: “U hungry pop pop?” (She testified Tuesday that Pop Pop was a nickname she used for Combs, whereas he generally referred to as her Baby Girl.)
He mentioned no, to which Ventura informed him to let her know if he modified his thoughts.
When Combs’ lawyer requested Ventura why she wished to spend a lot time with him, she replied: “Because I fell in love with him.”
“He was charismatic — big personality, larger than life,” Ventura informed the courtroom. “The beginning of the relationship was really fast, fast-paced, scary. But the more time I spent with him, his real personality came out — sweet, attentive.”
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The defence began to debate the sexual encounters, often known as freak-offs. “So, to make him happy you told him that you wanted to do freak-offs, right?” Estevao requested Ventura.
“No,” Ventura replied. “There’s a lot more to that.”
The jury was then proven a message from 2009 during which Combs and Ventura had been discussing a freak-off with an escort named “Jules.”
“I’m always ready to freak off lolol,” Ventura wrote.
After viewing the textual content message, Ventura whispered to the Judge Arun Subramanian, who referred to as a 10-minute break.
After the break, the defence confirmed extra textual content messages that Ventura despatched to Combs.
In a 2009 textual content message, Ventura wrote, “When we used to freak off when [sic] we were so in love. There were no questions asked, it felt right, like it literally made sense for the next step in our sex life together. I get nervous that I’m just becoming the girlfriend that you get your fantasies off with and that’s it. I don’t get the other part… Anymore at least.”
Combs’ lawyer requested Ventura if her hesitation mirrored within the textual content message got here from concern that she wouldn’t be seen because the rapper’s “full girlfriend” as a result of she was participating within the freak-offs with male escorts.
“I think that’s a way to look at it I guess, yeah,” Ventura mentioned.
Ventura laughed as Combs’ lawyer confirmed her an e-mail she despatched to him close to the beginning of their relationship, nearly 18 years in the past.
“It’s making me giggle because it’s from 2007,” Ventura mentioned, momentarily breaking the strain of a cross-examination that, thus far, has required her to learn and listen to specific messages she had exchanged candidly with Combs.
“I know,” Estevao responded. “We’re taking you back.”
In the e-mail, Ventura wrote, “I’ve never felt so loved, safe and empowered since we’ve come together. On the other hand, your [sic] constantly weary of me.”
Estevao then requested Ventura if it’s “fair to say” that Combs’ profession was ruined after she sued him in November 2023, making public for the primary time the idea of “freak-offs.”
“I could understand that,” Ventura responded.
Ventura was requested about Combs’ “swingers” way of life, and he or she testified that she generally watched him have intercourse with different ladies.
She mentioned that this occurred round 4 instances all through the course of their decade-long relationship.
Estevao requested Ventura if she thinks freak-offs had been associated to the swingers way of life.
“In a sexual way,” Ventura responded, earlier than including: “They’re very different.”
Combs’ attorneys mentioned they don’t anticipate to be carried out questioning Ventura till the tip of the day on Friday. If that occurs, it’s attainable she’ll want to return again to courtroom on Monday so prosecutors can ask her extra questions throughout a part of testimony often known as re-direct.
Subramanian famous that the perimeters had beforehand agreed that she could be carried out by week’s finish, since she’s pregnant and on account of give start quickly to her third little one.
The defence’s revised timing “is the exact opposite of what I was told,” the decide mentioned.
When requested whether or not she thought Combs was a drug addict, Ventura mentioned, “I would say he was an addict.”
She accused Combs of utilizing ecstasy and cocaine and informed the courtroom that he would turn into offended or unstable throughout drug withdrawals.
“I’m not a doctor, coming off of certain pills he would be pretty irritated,” she added.
Ventura mentioned that Combs informed drug sellers in Los Angeles to cease delivering medicine to her.
She additionally acknowledged that Combs had advisable that she get assist for her drug points.
On Wednesday, Ventura testified that she had an “off-and-on” dependancy to opiates. She mentioned she took them to return down off celebration medicine, together with ecstasy, which she mentioned she’d use throughout freak-offs. V informed the courtroom that she relied closely on opiates as a result of they numbed her feelings, permitting her to flee from the truth of the freak-offs.
Ventura mentioned that Combs solely wished her to do medicine with him somewhat than with associates.
The defence lawyer highlighted situations of Ventura’s anger with Combs and her jealousy over consideration he gave different ladies.
“You’re making me look like a side piece and that is not what I thought I was,” Ventura informed Combs in a 2013 textual content message.
Ventura mentioned Combs made it clear from the early days of their relationship that he didn’t need her seeing anybody else. He’d get offended if he suspected her of dishonest, she mentioned.
But the identical guidelines didn’t apply to him, she informed jurors, and he or she confronted him after she noticed social media posts connecting him to different ladies.
Ventura testified that after a number of years with Combs she longed to be an even bigger a part of his life — however that he wouldn’t let her in.
She mentioned she’d get offended that Combs was happening holidays along with his youngsters and his ex-partner, the late Kim Porter, and that he was spending holidays with them as an alternative of her.
Ventura additionally informed the courtroom that there have been by no means any medicine within the child oil used throughout the freak-offs. Combs was accused in a lawsuit final yr of spiking the infant oil with GHB.
What Combs is 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 by 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, in keeping with 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 interact in prostitution. He has denied all the fees towards him and has rejected a plea deal, selecting to go to trial as an alternative.
If discovered responsible within the New York courtroom, he might face life in jail.
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Global News will probably be protecting the Diddy trial in its entirety. Please examine again for updates.
— With recordsdata from The Associated Press
