UPDATE, 3:24 PM: “Sean.”
That was the phrase Cassie Ventura mentioned in a monotone voice time and again Tuesday responding to questions from the prosecution on the second day of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex-trafficking trial.
The Dangerous Boy Information founder’s former longtime girlfriend gave Combs’ Christian identify in one-word solutions to queries from Assistant U.S. Legal professional Emily Johnson, similar to who demanded the marathon “freak-off” intercourse periods with paid escorts who had been drenched in Johnson & Johnson child oil. “Sean.” Who picked out the outfits Ventura wore for the “freak-offs’? “Sean.” Who arrange the video tools to movie the periods? “Sean.” Who’s violent outbursts was Ventura fearful of? “Sean.”
Who managed each side of Ventura’s life throughout the couple’s 2007 – 2018 relationship?
“Sean.” “Sean.” “Sean.”
At one level Ventura gave an announcement that would sum up most of her testimony on this first of what’s anticipated a number of days: “Each freak-off was directed by Sean.”
In generally meandering questions from AUSA Johnson, this afternoon’s testimony seemed to be loads about set-up and crafting the story that places Combs within the headlights of the fees of racketeering, intercourse trafficking, transportation to interact in prostitution and extra he was arrested on final September. The 55-year-old Combs, who has adopted a button down innocent outdated man persona in courtroom this week, may very well be behind bars for all times if discovered responsible.
To that, headshots had been proven in courtroom at present of round a half-dozen males, many with shaved heads, who Ventura recognized as among the paid escorts from the “freak-offs” – together with one smiling man Ventura mentioned she solely knew as “the Punisher.”
That line-up of compensated lovers was a break in what was, in some ways, a numbing litany of lists and areas that at instances appeared like a waste of a star witness and the jury’s time. Nonetheless, a protracted recreation technique did slowly emerge for the feds close to the tip of the day. Spotlighting the journey preparations made over time for no less than three of the escorts so they may be part of Combs and Ventura for paid “freak-offs” in different states and cities. The shift in direction of sticking the touchdown on the sex-trafficking cost was quick lived Tuesday, as different subjects just like the movies product of the darkish resort room intercourse periods got here up. But, in a case the place consent is the core of the protection’s personal technique, the prosecution’s shifting away from kinky and merciless to prison is incremental, however vital at this juncture.
Whereas the prosecution and Decide Arun Subramanian didn’t typically ask the very, very pregnant Ventura if she needed to take breaks in what have to be very making an attempt testimony or how she was doing, this afternoon’s session did see the witness herself request “a break” at round 4 pm ET. That ask was answered instantly by Decide Subramanian ordering a 10-minute pause within the listening to.
Earlier than ending with speak concerning the visceral safety footage of Combs beating an escaping Ventura in 2016 within the hallway of an upscale LA resort, the final 45-minutes of Tuesday’s courtroom session noticed the important thing witness going into element about her efforts to delete the intercourse movies of her, escorts and generally Combs. “If I used to be alone, I used to be deleting them,” she asserted. Ventura referred to as the thought of the express movies, not to mention the movies themselves: “Humiliating, disgusting, I by no means needed anybody to see me like that.”
“Objectifying me, placing me in very compromising gross positions with strangers.”
With reference to the “freak-offs” that spawned these movies, Ventura early this afternoon broke down in tears when she advised the choose, jury and everybody else within the courtroom that the one factor she didn’t hate concerning the intercourse periods was “the one-on-one time” with Combs. When requested why she ever agreed to the freak-offs after Combs advised Ventura of his attraction to voyeurism, she bluntly mentioned: “Good query …I needed to make him completely happy. I liked him.”
A Ventura-instigated textual content trade between Combs and herself confirmed the singer telling the “I Want A Lady” performer “I actually need to f*ck.” Explaining the undercurrent of the trade, Ventura mentioned she wrote that to Combs to get his consideration and a while for simply the 2 of them collectively, being that their whole relationship had turn out to be the “freak-offs.”
“Freak-offs” that had periods of Ventura being urinated on by escorts and Diddy himself, because the jury heard once more. Periods that left expensive resort rooms lined in urine, child oil, candle wax and extra, together with blood. “I used to be anticipated to have “freak-offs” throughout my interval,” Ventura acknowledged. She additionally revealed that after the periods with the escorts, she and Combs would go into a personal bed room so she may smear the semen that had be ejaculated on her then-boyfriend’s physique, particularly his nipples.
“Doing this made me really feel horrible, made me really feel nugatory, that I didn’t have the rest to supply,” Ventura asserted in a quiet voice. Crying, Ventura mentioned Combs was “dismissive” and referred to as her “predictable” when she requested for them to not do any extra “freak-offs.” Ventura admitted she would typically “backpedal” when she met with the dearth of Combs’ approval.
“His look would change,” she described. “His eyes would go black. It was just like the particular person I fell in love with was gone.
Ventura is ready to return for extra testimony on Wednesday. After the jury left the courtroom round 5 pm ET, Decide Subramanian knowledgeable the protection and the feds that he’s going to severely restrict what the press and others will be capable of see of the particular intercourse movies that includes Combs, Ventura and the paid companions.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and Cassie Ventura
Elizabeth Williams through AP
PREVIOUSLY, 8:21 AM: “There have been violent arguments that often resulted in some type of bodily abuse,” testified Cassie Ventura this morning on the intercourse trafficking trial of her former longtime boyfriend Sean Combs.
Within the opening of her testimony, Ventura detailed to prosecutors how Combs “mashed in my head, dragged me alongside the ground, kicked me, stomped on my head,” including that this occurred “too continuously.”
Later, in her time in entrance of the courtroom, a noticably distraught Ventura described the frequency of the alleged drug and booze-fueled “freak-offs” as “a job”.
Describing the intercourse periods as all-consuming, the singer added that within the ultimate years of her relationship with Combs her life was just about the freak-offs, recovering from the freak-offs, and both being subjected to or making an attempt to keep away from the relentless abuse by Combs.
The comfortable spoken eight months pregnant Ventura is by far essentially the most anticipated witness of the Combs trial, and, in some ways, the flame that began this authorized hearth. Ventura took the stand at present at roughly 11am Jap Time.
The general public downfall of Diddy really began when Ventura ( a.ok.a. Sufferer-1) went public along with her tales of abuse and assaults in shortly settled ($30 million) civil swimsuit in November 2023, As increasingly men and women got here ahead with related tales involving Combs, Ventura discovered herself again on the heart of issues in spring 2024 when CNN obtained and broadcast a seemingly damning and now protection disputed 2016 resort safety footage of a half-naked Combs beating Ventura within the corridor and dragging her again to their room. For months now, the protection alleges the footage, which their shopper had beforehand apologized for the violence he’s proven committing, was doctored and doesn’t inform the entire story.
Estimated by Decide Arun Subramanian to final eight to 10 weeks, the prison trial of the much-accused Diddy follows his arrest final September on fees of racketeering, intercourse trafficking, transportation to interact in prostitution and extra. Costs that would see the 55-year-old behind bars for the remainder of his life if discovered responsible. Repeatedly denied bail and incarcerated in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Heart since final fall, Combs has insisted he’s not responsible and every part he did within the so-called “freak offs” and in any other case was with consenting adults, nevertheless kinky and disturbing it turned.
Tuesday noticed prosecutors main the singer by how Ventura initially met Combs in New York Metropolis, in addition to speaking concerning the sudden kiss he gave her in Las Vegas throughout her twenty first birthday celebration celebration. “It was my first actual grownup relationship. It was completely different, his life-style, Ventura advised the jury of the start of her romantic interactions with Combs in mid-2007. “I used to be simply enamored with him. We had fun.” Nonetheless, Ventura was additionally not hesitant to speak about how issues in a short time went badly with the extraordinarily “controlling” Combs.
“I made the unsuitable face, and abruptly I obtained hit within the face,” Ventura mentioned at one level, delving into the bodily relationship she had with Combs, but additionally the “psychological abuse” she says she suffered from the micro-managing rapper.
Simply earlier than Ventura testified Tuesday, the protection abruptly moved to have her husband Alex Fantastic faraway from the courtroom.
They had been taking this transfer as a result of they anticipated that Fantastic, who has two and soon-to-be three youngsters with Ventura, could also be added to the protection’s 34-person witness record. Particularly, the idea for Fantastic’s testimony can be centered round an alleged 2018 rape of Ventura by Combs, and a string of profanity-laced texts to Combs from Fantastic again in 2023. Ultimately the choose determined {that a} portion of this may very well be used as testimony, and that Fantastic can be permitted solely to be within the courtroom, till the purpose the place the 2018 rape was talked about.
With the protection out of the gate of their opening assertion Monday strategically acknowledging Combs led an unconventional intercourse life, used medication and dedicated home violence, they hope to boring the darkish litany of accusations and proof the prosecution will current. To that, protection lawyer Brian Metal’s slicing up of the testimony of former resort safety guard and present LAPD officer Israel Florez on Day 1 of the trial yesterday was the method of the Combs’ crew in microcosm — discover the contradictions, and the leaps of religion and pound on them.
In that sense, the decade-long relationship between Combs and Ventura was undoubtedly a story of two very completely different realities within the Might 12 opening statements. Going through the jury on Monday, Assistant U.S. Legal professional Emily A. Johnson mentioned “if Cassie didn’t do what the defendant needed, the results had been extreme.” Together with persistent alleged violence and assaults, Ventura was compelled to let a male prostitute urinate in her mouth, and stay in worry of movies of the freak-offs being made public to destroy her profession. “Her livelihood and security relied on retaining him completely happy,” AUSA Johnson added of the ‘Me & U’ chart topper.
“This was a relationship, it was not primarily based on coercion, it was not primarily based on drive,” protection lawyer Teny Geragos mentioned in her personal opening assertion in courtroom in Decrease Manhattan on Monday. Hoping to undermine one of many authorities’s key items of proof, the now notorious 2016 L.A. resort safety video, Geragos launched a brand new tone. She advised jurors: “the video is overwhelming proof of home violence.” Nonetheless, the protection says, “it isn’t proof of intercourse trafficking,” claiming what the jury sees on display screen is unfortunately “a struggle over a telephone” and the consequence of the “poisonous relationship between two individuals who liked one another.”
The protection declare that Ventura lastly broke up with Combs in 2018 across the time of the demise from pneumonia of Kim Porter, the mom of 4 of Combs’ youngsters. After Combs had publicly referred to as Porter “my soulmate,” Ventura realized “for the primary time ever … all of the issues she wouldn’t be” to him, Geragos advised the jury. The feds’ model of occasions is that the now married mom of two Ventura escaped from Combs in worry of her life.
The jury was seated Tuesday at roughly 9:50 am Jap Time, with cross examination of Daniel Phillips, the paid intercourse companion of Ventura and Combs, choosing up from Monday. As he did beforehand, protection lawyer Xavier Donaldson emphasised time and again that it was Ventura who was in management and command of their sexual relationships with Phillips, no less than initially. Earlier to that, Tuesday, noticed a dialogue among the many legal professionals and the choose of media entry to the express, so referred to as freak off movies that will likely be proven in courtroom throughout this trial at current, given a partial unsealing of that materials is TBD.
Moreover, the feds and the protection as soon as once more bickered over whether or not or not materials of “prior dangerous acts”, by Ventura must be included within the trial. Particularly, they had been talking of an incident of violence at a birthday celebration for Ventura’s brother in Connecticut. Combs’ protection needed to see this proof launched as emblematic of Ventura’s character and her substance abuse of her personal exterior of the admittedly poisonous relationship with Combs. Prosecutors argued that the incidents are basically irrelevant.
The choose determined that these textual content exchanges between Ventura and Combs on the night of the Connecticut incident will likely be admissible within the trial.
Ventura’s testimony is anticipated to renew after the scheduled lunch break at present. The courtroom and legal professionals have made an settlement that the pregnant Ventura gained’t be on the stand longer than 90 minutes at a time.
