NOTE: The following article incorporates disturbing particulars and video footage. Please learn at your personal discretion.
Celebrity stylist Deonte Nash testified Wednesday at Sean “Diddy” Combs‘ sex trafficking and racketeering trial and said he heard the rapper threaten to release sex tapes of his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, to her parents’ workplaces and the web.
The testimony from Nash got here on the eleventh day of the trial and adopted the testimony of Capricorn Clark, a former prime aide to Combs, as prosecutors attempt to show Combs led a racketeering conspiracy spanning 20 years that relied on beefy safety staff and others to make sure he bought what he wished.
Ex-assistant Capricorn Clark leaves after testifying within the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs intercourse trafficking trial at Manhattan Federal Court on May 27, 2025 in New York City.
Adam Gray/Getty Images
Combs has pleaded not responsible to a number of counts of an indictment accusing him of a sample of abuse towards his longtime girlfriend Ventura and others.
Day 11
Deonte Nash, a stylist who labored with Combs and Ventura, testified that Combs threatened to not launch Ventura’s music when he was upset along with her.
Nash instructed the courtroom that he hung out with the couple and he witnessed Combs inform Ventura he wouldn’t launch her music anytime she mentioned one thing Combs didn’t like. Ventura was underneath contract with Combs’ Bad Boy Records in a 10-album deal, however solely launched one full studio album in 2006.
He mentioned that he heard Combs inform Ventura that if he heard from her “smart-ass mouth” then “her little mixtape won’t come out.”
Ventura beforehand testified that Nash was her buddy and that he was current when Combs allegedly attacked her, leading to a lower to her eyebrow. She mentioned that Nash jumped on Combs’ again in her defence.
Nash spoke concerning the incident that befell as they ready for a music competition. He instructed the courtroom that Combs was enraged and he grabbed Ventura by the hair and commenced to “hit and kick her.”
He mentioned that he and Mia, also called Victim-4, every tried to leap on Combs’ again however had been thrown off. Nash alleged that Combs continued to hit Ventura till “her head hit the edge of the bed frame” and commenced bleeding.
“When he noticed the blood, he just panicked,” Nash mentioned, including that Combs then instructed them, “Look what y’all made me do.”
Nash additionally recalled Combs threatening to launch intercourse tapes of Ventura to her dad and mom’ workplaces and on the web.
He mentioned that he was at Ventura’s condo when Combs came visiting and grabbed her by the hair, ordering Nash to get out. He mentioned that Ventura ultimately bought in his automobile they usually left, however Combs known as them and ordered them to drag over.
Nash mentioned Combs approached the window and instructed Ventura that he would launch intercourse tapes to the web, however first, he would launch them to her dad and mom’ workplaces to get them fired.
Deonte’ Nash attends the BET Awards 2021 at Microsoft Theater on June 27, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.
Johnny Nunez/Getty Images for BET
He mentioned that Ventura cried as they drove away from Combs, and he tried to reassure her by telling her that Combs was additionally on the tapes. That’s when Ventura instructed him that Combs wouldn’t be on the tapes as a result of he was filming her with different males, Nash mentioned.
Nash mentioned he didn’t report the violence to police as a result of he was afraid that Combs would retaliate in opposition to him. He mentioned that he did converse to Combs’ chief of employees, Kristina Khorram, concerning the subject.
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Khorram instructed him that she would converse to Combs, in accordance with Nash, who added that the violence didn’t cease after that.
Nash additionally instructed the courtroom that he has saved involved with Combs and doesn’t have any unwell will in opposition to him.
“I don’t hate him,” Nash mentioned. “It’s just not in me.”
Defence lawyer Xavier Donaldson requested Nash about his relationship with “Ms. Ventura.”
“Mrs. Fine,” Nash corrected Donaldson, making reference to the truth that the singer married Alex Fine in 2019.
Earlier Wednesday, it was introduced that Ventura and Fine welcomed their third little one collectively. Nash confirmed the information when he was requested concerning the final time he spoke to Ventura, and he mentioned it was on May 27 when he congratulated her on the beginning of her child.
Donaldson went on to counsel that Combs helped Nash get his begin as a celeb stylist after first being employed as an intern for Bad Boy Entertainment.
“Go ahead,” Nash responded, earlier than confirming that he helped Ventura choose her marriage ceremony costume.
Judge rejects mistrial request after questions on DNA
Arson investigator Lance Jimenez, who has labored for the Los Angeles Fire Department since 2003, took the stand as an knowledgeable in hearth trigger and origin willpower.
He testified that he responded to Scott Mescudi’s (Kid Cudi) dwelling on Jan. 9, 2012, to analyze a fireplace that was set to the rapper’s Porsche.
Last week, Mescudi testified that his canine watcher known as him from his home to let him know that his automobile was on hearth in January 2012. His buddy despatched him photographs of his broken automobile in his driveway and people photographs had been proven to the jury.
Mescudi described the photograph as “the damage of the Molotov cocktail in my Porsche.”
“It looks like the top of my Porsche was cut open, and that’s where the Molotov cocktail was put in,” he added.
Jimenez mentioned that Mescudi’s Porsche was parked near the storage. He noticed a lower within the canvas roof of the automobile and burn patterns all through the seats, inside roofing, carpet and centre console.
“There was a bottle on the front seat and there was like a cloth, a handkerchief, on the centre console that was burned,” he mentioned, including that he observed a disposable lighter outdoors of the automobile.
Jimenez mentioned that the Molotov cocktail was common out of a 40-ounce Old English 800 malt liquor bottle and a designer handkerchief. He mentioned the Molotov cocktail in Mescudi’s Porsche didn’t trigger as a lot harm because it may have as a consequence of a material that fell out of the bottle, inflicting a smoldering hearth.
He mentioned that if the hearth bomb had exploded, the automobile parked a couple of ft from the home would have possible unfold to the house.
Jimenez testified that he believes the hearth inside Mescudi’s automobile was a “targeted” crime.
Judge Arun Subramanian then instantly rejected a defence request for a mistrial after Combs’ legal professionals mentioned prosecutors tried to indicate to a jury that the music mogul interfered with the investigation into Mescudi’s firebombed Porsche in 2012.
Although such mistrial requests are widespread throughout prolonged federal trials involving tons of of items of proof and dozens of witnesses, this was the primary request at Combs’ trial, which is in its third week of testimony in Manhattan. Combs has been energetic in his defence, repeatedly writing notes to his legal professionals, they usually have consulted with him as they questioned witnesses.
Subramanian instructed the jury to ignore testimony concerning the destruction of fingerprint playing cards that occurred months after Mescudi’s automobile was set ablaze. Weeks earlier than that firebombing, Combs grew to become enraged when he realized that Mescudi was relationship Ventura. (Combs has denied any information or involvement within the automobile vandalism or hearth.)
The defence’s mistrial request got here after Jimenez testified that fingerprints taken from Mescudi’s burned-up Porsche 911 had been destroyed in August 2012, about eight months after the hearth. Jimenez mentioned somebody within the Los Angeles Police Department who was not concerned within the investigation ordered the fingerprint playing cards destroyed. He mentioned that was not regular protocol.
Defence lawyer Alexandra Shapiro requested for the mistrial. She instructed Subramanian that “prosecutorial misconduct” had occurred and mentioned “there’s no way to un-ring this bell.”
She mentioned prosecutors had been on discover throughout jury choice that some potential jurors needed to be eradicated from consideration for the jury as a result of they believed Combs may purchase his method out of the racketeering conspiracy he’s charged with.
“These questions were designed to play right into that,” she mentioned.
Defence lawyer Marc Agnifilo known as the prosecution’s conduct “outrageous.”
Combs’ legal professionals argued that the prosecution’s questions and Jimenez’s ensuing testimony was extremely prejudicial as a result of prosecutors had been suggesting that Combs had one thing to do with the destruction of the information.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik mentioned “a mistrial is absolutely unwarranted here.” She mentioned the topic of fingerprints was raised to counter protection options by way of questions posed to different witnesses that the automobile firebombing was poorly investigated and that the world was not canvassed for fingerprints.
LAPD officer describes scene at Kid Cudi’s dwelling
Los Angeles police officer Chris Ignacio, who has been with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for about 16 years, mentioned he responded to Mescudi’s dwelling in December 2011, the morning Combs allegedly broke in.
He mentioned that he was on patrol within the Hollywood division at the moment. He and his companion responded to a radio name for a potential housebreaking at 8:20 a.m.
Ignacio instructed the courtroom that he observed a black Escalade parked outdoors Mescudi’s dwelling when he arrived, however the SUV took off up the hill as quickly because the police car pulled up behind it.
Rapper Kid Cudi leaves Federal Court after testifying on the trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, in New York, Thursday, May 22, 2025.
AP Photo/Richard Drew
He testified that he took observe of the licence plate however couldn’t see any passengers by way of the tinted glass. He added that the automobile was registered to one in all Combs’ corporations.
When Ignacio entered the house, he observed that Christmas items had been on a desk, with some unwrapped.
Combs’ lawyer Brian Steele cross-examined Ignacio and bought him to testify that the incident at Mescudi’s dwelling was not reported as a housebreaking.
When requested whether or not there was any proof or studies of stolen gadgets, Ignacio mentioned no. He additionally mentioned that there have been no studies made to him on the time that there was a risk to homicide anybody.
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 way of 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 folks into silence by choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, in accordance 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 in opposition to him and has rejected a plea deal, selecting to go to trial as an alternative.
If discovered responsible within the New York courtroom, he may face life in jail.
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Global News will likely be protecting the Diddy trial in its entirety. Please examine again for updates.
— With information from The Associated Press
