“I’ve a black eye and a fats lip,” Cassie Ventura informed the courtroom in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ intercourse trafficking trial Wednesday, studying aloud a textual content she despatched to Combs after a beating from the “All About The Benjamins” performer at an L.A. lodge in 2016.
“You might be sick for considering it’s okay what you’ve completed. Simply keep away from me,” she added with a damaged voice.
The continued testimony from the very pregnant “Me & U” singer Wednesday follows a day of sordid revelations on Might 13 of the wide-spread cruelty and management Ventura and federal prosecutors declare she suffered by the hands of Diddy throughout their decade-long relationship.
Combs responded to Ventura’s accusations with extra texts imploring her to name him and falsely telling her that he was being arrested at that second for the incident within the lodge.
Within the rapid aftermath of the incident, a pal of Ventura’s referred to as the LAPD to the singer’s close by residence. When the police arrived, nonetheless, Ventura declined to inform them who had given her the fats lip and black eye.
“Simply in that second, I didn’t need to harm him that means,” she defined at present. “At that second, I wasn’t prepared”.
Combs later confirmed up at Ventura’s residence, banging on the door, demanding to be let in. Ventura was not on the residence on the time, she stated, at present.
The courtroom was additionally proven {a photograph} of a closely made up Ventura sporting sun shades simply earlier than she attended a film premiere with Combs days after the lodge incident in March 2016. The singer stated she was sporting the sun shades to cover her black eye. She additionally stated that as a lot as she tried, she couldn’t cowl up all of the bruises on her physique.
With just a few breaks for the expectant mom, the jury Tuesday heard tales of inflatable swimming swimming pools filled with child oil in lodge suites, and a number of paid companions having intercourse for days with Ventura as Combs directed the motion and pleasured himself within the nook. Over the roughly 5 hours Ventura was questioned by Assistant U.S. Lawyer Emily Johnson, there have been tales of beatings, threats of extra beatings, manipulation, degradation, medicine and extra medicine from a younger girl who admitted she was looking for self-worth at nearly any price from a person she nonetheless says she beloved and would do something to please.
Cassie Ventura and Sean “Diddy” Combs in 2018
John Shearer/Getty Pictures
Estimated by presiding Decide Arun Subramanian to final eight to 10 weeks, the legal trial of the much-accused and presently incarcerated Combs follows his arrest final September on fees of racketeering, intercourse trafficking, transportation to have interaction in prostitution and extra. Now seemingly about to have her and husband Alex Positive’s third youngster any day, Diddy’s ex Ventura was paid off within the tens of tens of millions in late 2023 to rapidly drop her personal assault and abuse civil swimsuit towards the Dangerous Boy Information founder. Although withdrawn with that settlement, that short-lived swimsuit by Ventura opened the flood gates of rape and different such accusations towards Combs (with a handful now dismissed) and drove a direct path to the legal trial underway now in Manhattan.
The 55-year-old Combs is spending the remainder of his life behind bars in federal jail if discovered responsible by the jury on this case.
As he has in each single case towards him, Combs has entered a not responsible plea. The one-time mini-mogul’s protection crew have admitted in numerous courtroom filings and their very own opening assertion on Might 12 that their shopper is a home violence preparator, a drug consumer, a self-avowed swinger and infrequently uncontrolled. Nonetheless, with that preemptive swipe on the prosecution and having beforehand rejected a plea deal, they rightly insist that’s not what he’s charged with. In addition they insist that nobody was coerced into something and everybody, together with Ventura, was a consenting grownup in Combs so-called unconventional way of life.
Ventura and Combs self-described “poisonous relationship” was again within the media foreground within the spring 2024 when CNN obtained and broadcast a seemingly irrefutable and now protection disputed 2016 L.A. lodge safety footage of a half-naked Combs beating his then-girlfriend within the corridor and dragging her again to their room.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs bodily assaulting Cassie Ventura in 2016
CNN
For months, the protection alleges the footage, which their shopper had beforehand apologized for the violence he’s proven committing after which deleted the apology, was doctored and doesn’t inform the entire story. Now, after repeated viewing of the footage within the trial’s first days, and Might 12 testimony from the then InterContinental Lodge safety guard who arrived on the scene that March day 9 years in the past, the Combs’ authorized crew is taking the stance that the footage merely reveals a dust-up between lovers over a telephone that spiraled uncontrolled however de-escalated quickly too.
All through Ventura’s soft-spoken and infrequently succinct testimony on Tuesday, a sweater-wearing and white-haired Combs sat only a few toes away within the jam-packed courtroom of Decide Subramanian. In contrast to the primary day of the trial on Monday, the “I Want A Lady” performer was in close to fixed movement on Might 13 as Ventura testified. Talking and passing notes to his protection crew, and shifting with obvious agitation in his chair, because the day glided by, Combs regarded much less and fewer just like the stuffy outdated man persona he was making an attempt to move off.
Alex Positive, Cassie Ventura’s husband, leaves for the day through the trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs at Manhattan Federal Court docket on Might 13, 2025
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Pictures
Except she goes into labor, Ventura is anticipated to testify most of this week. To that, the Marc Agnifilo, Teny Geragos and Brian Metal-led protection are extensively anticipated to take turns eviscerating star witness Ventura’s testimony as that of an outdated lover who by no means received over her jealousy and the very fact she was not the so-called “soulmate” to Combs that the now deceased Kim Porter was. As was raised yesterday, at one level Ventura’s husband Positive could also be referred to as to testify by the protection over the problems of an alleged 2018 rape of the singer by Combs and a sequence of harsh and probably threatening textual content messages Positive despatched Combs in 2023.
Generally known as Sufferer-1, Ventura’s testimony was alleged to be adopted by Sufferer-2, Sufferer-3 and Sufferer-4 and extra just lately added Sufferer-5. Nearly all of that schedule continues to be in place, however Sufferer-3 has disappeared, and the federal government admits they’ve misplaced contact along with her. Seen as late as this previous weekend as a probable roadblock the tight trial schedule going forward to plan or grounds for a mistrial movement by the protection, the continued absence of Sufferer-3 was primarily waved by by Decide Subramanian earlier this week on the hopes she turns up or the feds discover her quickly.
Nonetheless, as sources inform me, the no-show of Sufferer-3 is already being penciled in as a rationale for a later mistrial movement by the protection or grounds for an enchantment if the jury verdict is towards Combs in early July.
