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Grammy-winning rapper Kid Cudi used to be anticipated to testify on the Sean “Diddy” Combs intercourse trafficking and racketeering trial on Wednesday to inform the jury about his transient courting 14 years in the past with Combs’ ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura.
Prosecutors corrected this expectation, pronouncing the 41-year-old artist, whose complete identify is Scott Mescudi, gained’t start his direct exam till May 22 on the earliest.
Meanwhile, particular agent Gerard Gannon of Homeland Security Investigations used to be again at the witness stand for a 2d day on Wednesday, discussing what investigators discovered once they raided Combs’ house close to Miami in March 2024, six months prior to his arrest ultimate September.
Gannon advised the courtroom on May 20 that the brokers executing a seek warrant for the valuables used an armoured automobile to bust thru Combs’ safety gate and had groups on boats within reach.
In addition to guns, he mentioned they discovered platform excessive heels and pieces that prosecutors say Combs steadily used throughout his freak-off intercourse marathons, together with undies, intercourse toys, child oil, lubricant and condoms.
Jurors additionally noticed portions of 2 AR-15 rifles that federal brokers discovered ultimate 12 months whilst looking Combs’ mansion on Star Island.
Day 8
Gannon used to be puzzled about pieces seized from some of the closets throughout the raid of Combs’ house ultimate 12 months. He mentioned he seized a couple of pink pump excessive heels and came upon cell phones filled inside of a Balenciaga boot.
He additionally testified that there used to be a Gucci bag throughout the closet that contained white residue that examined sure for cocaine and ketamine. Gannon mentioned the bag additionally contained smaller luggage of various colored drugs, together with some stamped with a Tesla image that examined sure for MDMA and Xanax.
Gannon mentioned that investigators additionally discovered a plastic bag of drugs that examined sure for the principle component of hallucinogenic mushrooms. He mentioned they have been came upon in a wood field marked, “Puffy.”
Authorities additionally discovered a bin containing 25 bottles of child oil, 31 bottles of Astroglide lubricant and rubber geese in a closet within the hallway between Combs’ bed room and closet in his Miami house. A photograph of that closet and the pieces discovered have been proven to the jurors.
Police and Homeland Security officials are noticed at a waterfront mansion belonging to Sean Combs in Miami throughout a bi-coastal raid on March 25, 2024, in Miami Beach, Fla.
MEGA/GC Images
Gannon mentioned {that a} .45-calibre handgun used to be present in a pink suitcase on the front of Combs’ visitor space at the Miami assets.
Combs’ attorney Teny Geragos described the quest as overkill.
“So, HSI determined it would come in by land and by sea to secure the property?” Geragos requested. Gannon mentioned Homeland Security Investigations waited to look the valuables till Combs used to be on a flight out of the city along with his circle of relatives.
The agent showed that the federal investigation started simply after Ventura filed a lawsuit towards Combs, alleging years of abuse and involvement in masses of freak-off performances with male escorts, which Combs watched and on occasion participated in.
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Combs’ felony crew instructed that the choice of weapons present in his Miami house weren’t as vital or as bad as they seem.
Gannon agreed that most of the firearms, together with some with serial numbers got rid of, have been wrapped up in tape, now not loaded and inoperable. He additionally agreed with Geragos that weapons with out serial numbers may nonetheless be connected to house owners via fingerprints and different DNA.
Forensic psychologist says home violence sufferers regularly stick with their abusers
Once Gannon wrapped up his testimony, prosecutors known as Dawn Hughes, a scientific and forensic psychologist, to the stand.
Hughes has taken the witness stand in different high-profile sexual misconduct trials together with the NXIVM intercourse cult chief Keith Raniere’s trial in 2019, R. Kelly’s federal trial and the Johnny Depp–Amber Heard defamation trial.
Hughes mentioned she used to be attesting as a “blind expert” to give you the jury with some details about home violence, sexual attack, rape and stressful pressure. She added that she has now not assessed any of the sufferers or witnesses within the case.
She testified that she is being paid $600 an hour for her paintings and $6,000 for an afternoon of testimony in courtroom.
Hughes mentioned that it’s not unusual for sufferers of home violence to stick with their abusers. She defined that abusers regularly use strategies, past bodily violence, to make sufferers really feel trapped within the courting.
“It’s about the power and control that the abuser has over the victim,” Hughes mentioned.
Forensic psychologist Dawn Hughes arrives for the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs intercourse trafficking trial at Manhattan Federal Court on May 21, 2025, in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Hughes mentioned that sexual abuse is “a very private harm,” which may make it tricky for sufferers to talk up about what they’re experiencing and to hunt lend a hand.
“They experience a tremendous amount of shame, humiliation, degradation,” Hughes mentioned. “They don’t want to talk about it. They don’t even want to think about it in their own brain.”
The psychologist additionally testified {that a} sufferer’s monetary dependence on an abuser can play a large function of their choice to stick in an abusive courting.
“If you don’t have money, you are left with a feeling of ‘Where am I going to go?’ How are you to leave if you don’t have access to those tangible resources?” Hughes mentioned.
She additionally spoke about “trauma bonds,” which she describes as when any person is connected to their spouse in spite of violence and abuse, creating a sufferer unwilling to go away the placement.
Hughes mentioned that abusive relationships too can have love and kindness, along with the abuse trend.
“The victim wants that, they want that back. So when that is shown to the victim, that’s very reinforcing,” Hughes mentioned.
Hughes mentioned that it regularly takes more than one makes an attempt for sufferers to go away an abusive courting. “There’s this pattern of returning and reconciliation, and then returning again,” she advised the courtroom.
She mentioned sufferers may need to come again to “the good version of their partner that they still do love.”
Hughes mentioned that it’s not unusual for abuse sufferers to make use of elements to “numb” themselves via taking medicine or ingesting alcohol prior to seeing their spouse to “ward off other physical or psychological pain to come.”
She mentioned that it’s very unusual for sufferers of abuse to speak about it with others across the time it happens.
“Many victims will wait months, even years, before telling about what happened to them,” Hughes testified.
“They don’t want to label themselves … a victim. They don’t want to label their abuser as abuser,” Hughes mentioned. “It’s too painful to admit that fact that, ‘Somebody who loved me did this to me.’ They’re still in self-blame.”
Why is Kid Cudi anticipated to testify?
Scott Mescudi is anticipated to take the witness stand later this week to inform the jury about his courting with Ventura.
Prosecutors say Combs used to be so disillusioned concerning the courting that he organized to have Mescudi’s convertible firebombed, consistent with courtroom filings.
Ventura testified ultimate week that Combs organized for her to fulfill Mescudi a number of occasions in 2011 to paintings on tune. She mentioned her courting with him started past due within the 12 months and he or she were given a burner telephone so the 2 may be in contact with out Combs studying about it.
She mentioned Combs turned into enraged when she left him, and he kicked her within the again onerous sufficient to go away a bruise as she used to be exiting his Los Angeles house for the ultimate time that 12 months.
Ventura mentioned that despite the fact that she and Combs broke up, they nonetheless engaged in so-called freak-offs. It used to be throughout a type of episodes that Combs picked up her common telephone and spotted communications that exposed Ventura used to be seeing Mescudi, Ventura mentioned.
On Tuesday, Ventura’s mom, Regina Ventura, testified that she gained an e-mail in December 2011 from her daughter pronouncing that Combs used to be so indignant about her courting with Mescudi that he deliberate to liberate sexually specific movies of her and ship anyone to harm the pair.
Kid Cudi seems on the Los Angeles premiere of ‘Sonic The Hedgehog 2,’ on April 5, 2022.
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File
Afterward, Regina mentioned, she gained a requirement from Combs for $20,000. Scared for her daughter’s protection, she went to the financial institution and despatched Combs the cash, best to have it returned via Combs days later.
“He was angry that he had spent money on her and she went with another person,” she mentioned.
Ventura testified that Mescudi came around her at her mom’s Connecticut house round Christmas in 2011 and stayed for 3 or 4 days. She mentioned she broke up with him.
“It was just too much,” she mentioned. “Too much danger, too much uncertainty of, like, what could happen if we continued to see each other.”
Ventura mentioned she advised her circle of relatives she used to be going to Los Angeles after the vacations to “get to work.” But as an alternative, she mentioned, she travelled to fulfill Combs in Arizona, the place he had long past to discuss with a faculty along with his son. They resumed their courting.
When Ventura and Combs have been in another country, Combs advised her that Mescudi’s automotive could be blown up and Combs sought after Mescudi’s pals there to look it, Ventura mentioned.
What Combs is on trial for
U.S. prosecutors allege that for 20 years, at the back of the scenes, Combs used to be coercing and abusing ladies with lend a hand from a community of colleagues who helped silence sufferers thru blackmail and violence.
Combs faces an indictment that incorporates descriptions of freak-offs, that are outlined within the courtroom document 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 via choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, consistent with prosecutors. One indictment alleges that Combs dangled anyone from a balcony.
Although dozens of women and men have alleged in proceedings 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 the entire fees towards him and has rejected a plea deal, opting for to visit trial as an alternative.
If discovered to blame within the New York courtroom, he may face lifestyles in jail.
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Global News will probably be protecting the Diddy trial in its entirety. Please test again for updates.
— With information from The Associated Press
