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NOTE: The following article accommodates disturbing particulars and video footage. Please learn at your individual discretion.
Cassie Ventura is again on the witness stand Friday to testify for a fourth day in Sean “Diddy” Combs‘ intercourse trafficking trial.
Defence attorneys started cross-examining the star witness on Thursday, urgent her to learn aloud textual content messages that appeared to indicate her expressing need for the drug-fuelled group intercourse — known as freak-offs — she beforehand testified left her traumatized.
For the primary time throughout the trial, there was some pressure amongst counsel about timing. In a letter to the decide, prosecutors insisted that the defence wrap up their questioning in time to permit for prosecution follow-ups on Friday, citing concern for Ventura’s “health and safety” and the potential for a mistrial if she goes into labour together with her third baby.
“The inefficiency of cross-examination yesterday” the federal government wrote, “raises the inference that the defendant hopes to accomplish precisely that outcome.”
Ventura is eight-and-a-half months pregnant.
Day 5
Defence lawyer Anna Estevao resumed her cross-examination with questions associated to the March 2016 recording of Combs attacking Ventura in a Los Angeles lodge. In it, Combs might be seen throwing Ventura to the ground, kicking her and dragging her right into a lodge hallway.
Estevao had Ventura learn aloud a textual content message through which she complained that Combs was uncontrolled from medicine and alcohol that day. In the message, Ventura informed Combs: “I’m not a rag doll. I’m somebody’s child.”
In textual content messages learn aloud to the jury, Combs and Ventura expressed love to at least one one other once more, simply days after the assault.
Ventura informed Combs in a single textual content: “We need a different vibe from Friday.”
She additionally informed the courtroom that Combs was cautious of her relationship or giving consideration to different males, even throughout breaks of their decade-long relationship.
The hip-hop star confiscated her telephone on quite a few events, together with when he came upon she was relationship a soccer participant and when she suspected her of dancing with the singer Chris Brown.
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Ventura didn’t identify the participant and denied dancing with Brown.
The defence additionally performed Ventura an audio recording of her threatening a person who had alluded to seeing a video of her performing intercourse acts in 2014. Ventura is heard pleading to see the video and utilizing profanity to threaten him.
“It’s my life and I’ll kill you,” she could possibly be heard screaming on the man, with expletives. “I’ve never killed anybody in my life, but I will kill you.”
She had beforehand testified that Combs informed her to not let the person out of her sight till she came upon what was occurring.
Ventura acknowledged in her testimony that Combs subsequently made efforts to maintain the video non-public. It seems the defence is making an attempt to ascertain that Ventura and Combs have been united of their efforts to maintain movies non-public, regardless of Ventura testifying that Combs tried to blackmail her by threatening to launch the movies.
Ventura testified that she broke up with Combs for good in August 2018 after she noticed a photograph of him with one other girl he’d been relationship for the previous few years of their decade-long relationship.
“I just don’t trust anymore. That last shot put the nail in the coffin,” she texted Combs, referring to the photograph of Combs with a lady recognized in courtroom as Gina.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t be with you anymore if you did that to me again,” she wrote, telling Combs “you lied to me” and “she never went away.”
Soon after, she stated, she began relationship her now-husband, Alex Fine.
“Can I not get a chance to make things right?” Combs texted Ventura shortly after their remaining breakup. “I haven’t taken care of you?”
“You took care of me materialistically, not where I needed it,” she replied. “I needed you to love me and put me first.”
Estevao requested Ventura if she nonetheless had emotions for Combs after he allegedly raped her in August 2018, when the pair met up for dinner and Ventura initiated the break-up.
“You didn’t hate him then. And you don’t still hate him now,” Estevao stated.
“I don’t hate him,” Ventura responded.
“You still have love for him?”
“I have love for the past, what it was.”
Ventura then confirmed that she received video from Fine over the past time she had intercourse with Combs, shortly after their breakup and the alleged 2018 rape.
“Your now-husband didn’t know that you were with Mr. Combs at the time, correct?” Estevao requested. Ventura stated that Fine ultimately came upon the intercourse, in addition to the alleged rape, which prompted him to punch a wall.
Ventura’s testimony ended Friday with a bombshell disclosure: She stated she expects to obtain a US$10 million settlement from the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles, the place she was assaulted by Combs in 2016.
She revealed the determine throughout questioning by Combs’ lawyer in a section of her testimony referred to as re-cross. She stated the determine was an estimate and that the settlement was reached not too long ago. She didn’t disclose the character of her declare towards the lodge.
The revelation got here after the defence tried to recommend that she had cancelled a music tour after she settled her lawsuit towards Combs to the tune of $20 million and not wanted the cash a tour would usher in.
Not true, Ventura informed the lawyer, saying her purpose for cancelling the tour was as a result of she was feeling overwhelmed and didn’t need to be away from her household for thus lengthy.
At the conclusion of her testimony Friday, Ventura’s authorized workforce shared a press release on her behalf: “This week has been extremely challenging, but also remarkably empowering and healing for me. I hope that my testimony has given strength and a voice to other survivors, and can help others who have suffered to speak up and also heal from the abuse and fear.
“For me, the more I heal, the more I can remember. And the more I can remember, the more I will never forget. I want to thank my family and my advocates for their unwavering support, and I’m grateful for all the kindness and encouragement that I have received.
“I’m glad to put this chapter of my life to rest. As I turn to focus on the conclusion of my pregnancy, I ask for privacy for me and for my growing family.”
Her husband additionally shared a press release Friday afternoon, which was learn by lawyer Dougals Widgor.
“Over the past five days, the world has gotten to witness the strength and bravery of my wife freeing herself of her past.”
He continued: “I have felt so many things sitting there. I have felt tremendous pride and overwhelming love for Cass. I have felt profound anger that she has been subjected to sitting in front of a person who tried to break her. So to him and all of those who helped him along the way, please know this: You did not. You did not break her spirit, nor her smile, that lights up every room. You did not break the souls of a mother who gives the best hugs and plays the silliest games with our little girls. You did not break the woman who has made me a better man.”
He added that it’s an insult to say he saved her: “Cassie saved Cassie. She alone broke free from abuse, coercion, violence and threats. She did the work of fighting the demons that only a demon himself could have done to her.”
What Combs is on trial for
U.S. prosecutors allege that for 20 years, behind the scenes, Combs was coercing and abusing girls 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, 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 girls.
Combs is charged with intercourse trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to have interaction in prostitution. He has denied all the costs 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 shall be protecting the Diddy trial in its entirety. Please test again for updates.
— With recordsdata from The Associated Press
