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Singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, a former female friend of Sean “Diddy” Combs and a key witness within the federal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial of the song tycoon, returned to the witness stand in New York City on Wednesday morning, because the high-profile trial entered its 3rd day.
Ventura, who’s 8 and a part months pregnant, started her 2nd day of testimony via revisiting the resort surveillance photos of her 2016 attack via Combs. She mentioned Combs was once yelling at her after which threw a vase at her within the elevator foyer.
“I didn’t get hit. I remember it hitting the wall. He was yelling at me and threw it at me,” Ventura mentioned, including that Combs instructed her “that I wasn’t going to leave him there. That I couldn’t.”
The jury was once then proven two footage of Ventura, that she says she took of herself after the resort attack the place she is noticed with a swollen lip. She mentioned she additionally had a black eye underneath her sun shades.
The jury was once additionally proven textual content messages between Combs and Ventura after the attack, the place she instructed him “you’re sick for thinking it’s OK to do what you did to me” and instructed him that she “had a black eye”.
Ventura was once requested once more concerning the more than a few escorts she says she was once compelled to rent, with Combs’s cash, to participate in increasingly more excessive sexual situations over marathon classes Combs referred to as “freak-offs” – she has named greater than a dozen since her testimony started on Tuesday.
“That was just my job, really. It was expected of me,” she mentioned. She instructed the court docket that if she mentioned no to a freak-off or instructed Combs she didn’t wish to do it, “it would be a problem, we’d end up fighting” including that violence was once “always a concern if we weren’t agreeing on something”.
In a 2016 textual content message proven in court docket, Combs is noticed asking Ventura to have a “proper” freak-off with out the usage of ketamine. Combs claimed {that a} “successful” freak-off was once best “when we remember”, whilst Ventura famous that she most popular ketamine all over “freak-offs” as a result of “it was very dissociative.”
Combs would frequently threaten to unencumber the movies he had of Ventura participating within the freak-offs, she mentioned. She famous that on her birthday three hundred and sixty five days, Combs reminded her of the movies he had in his ownership after she refused to go away her pals to head with him to a freak-off.
“I feared for my career, my family … It is horrible and disgusting, no one should do that to anyone,” she mentioned. “It could ruin everything I worked for, make me look like a slut … I wasn’t supposed to be on those videos. I didn’t want to be in them.”
“I felt trapped,” she instructed the court docket. “Whatever was going to not make him angry or threaten me I was going to do.”
Ventura testified that she would ask Combs to delete movies of freak-offs that have been on his telephone and that he would inform her he did. She would later see the movies nonetheless on his telephone.
Ventura mentioned she skilled power urinary tract infections because of the consistent freak-offs. however was once nonetheless compelled to participate even if the ache was once “horrible”.
After such classes, Ventura mentioned that she felt “empty” emotionally and “gross”. Sometimes, she mentioned she would depart freak-offs if she felt “unsafe”, however would frequently go back to the resort room as a result of Combs or considered one of his staff would in finding her and produce her again.
During some freak-offs Combs would “hit me on the side of the head” and kick Ventura, which she mentioned would steered escorts – who may just listen the violence happening – to invite her later on if she was once OK.
On Combs’s violence out of doors the freak-offs, Ventura mentioned there was once an example in 2013 when she was once in her condominium and Combs attempted to assault her. Her two pals, who have been within the condominium on the time, “jumped on his back” to give protection to her. Combs was once nonetheless ready to throw Ventura down, slicing her eyebrow at the nook of her mattress.
Combs took her to a plastic surgeon’s place of business in Beverly Hills to mend the lower; Ventura later texted him a photograph of the wound “so you can remember”.
Ventura instructed the court docket that occasionally she fought again towards Combs, however that combating again would result in “escalating” the struggle, which occasionally made “him more violent”. Multiple staff of Combs noticed him abusing her over time, she mentioned, together with participants of his safety group, control and assistants. Ventura even famous that one assistant instructed her that they give up on account of how Combs handled her.
She additionally mentioned Combs, who’s 17 years her senior and primary met her when she was once 19, would frequently display up unannounced to her condominium.
On Wednesday afternoon, Ventura mentioned that Combs was once violent with others in addition to her, one thing the jury can be expecting to listen to extra about from later witnesses for the prosecution. She instructed the court docket that he would attack a few of his staff, each female and male, and had additionally attacked pals of hers, together with punching other folks and throwing them into furnishings. He dangled a pal of hers over a balcony, she mentioned.
The 38-year-old testified on Tuesday that all over her decade-long on-and-off dating with Combs, she persevered years of abuse.
Ventura filed a lawsuit in 2023 towards Combs, accusing him of bodily and sexual abuse. Though the 2 settled that lawsuit for an undisclosed sum, it brought about a federal investigation that resulted in Combs’s arrest in September 2024.
Combs faces fees together with racketeering conspiracy, intercourse trafficking and transportation to have interaction in prostitution. He has pleaded now not in charge and denied all allegations.
The trial, anticipated to remaining no less than 8 weeks, isn’t being televised.
If convicted, Combs, who has been jailed since his arrest remaining yr, may just spend the remainder of his lifestyles in jail.
