The flood of allegations, lawsuits, and criminal charges against Sean "Diddy" Combs began with a 2023 lawsuit by Cassie Ventura, Combs' former girlfriend and a recording artist for his Bad Boy record label under the mononym Cassie. The lawsuit was quickly settled, but it set off a series of similar lawsuits and an FBI investigation that led to charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution against the music and fashion mogul. Disturbing footage of Combs physically abusing Ventura at the Intercontinental Los Angeles Century City in 2016 also emerged a year ago, sparking a statement from Ventura urging the public to believe and support victims of violence. Tuesday, she testified against Combs in federal court.
Combs' criminal trial began Monday in New York. In her opening statement, prosecutor Emily A. Johnson cited Ventura's situation:
Let’s start now with just one night. The defendant was on the hunt for his girlfriend, a woman named Cassie. For years, the defendant physically abused Cassie. He also sexually exploited her, forcing her to have sex with male escorts while he watched and recorded it. But that night, the defendant learned he had lost control of Cassie. He found out Cassie was seeing another man. Furious, he set out to find Cassie and that other man. But he couldn’t do it by himself. So he took his gun and he took his bodyguard, one of his most loyal lieutenants, to wake up one of the defendant’s employees in the middle of the night.
The defendant yelled that he was going to kill the man Cassie was with. He demanded that his employee take him to that man’s home. The defendant forced the employee out of her apartment and into an SUV. They drove to the house. The defendant and his bodyguard broke in, but no one was there. The defendant didn’t give up. He kept looking for Cassie. When he finally found her, he did what he had done countless times before. He beat her brutally, kicking her in the back and flinging her around like a rag doll.
All of that violence wasn’t enough though. The defendant had to make sure he had control over Cassie once again. So he threatened her. The defendant told Cassie that if she defied him again, he would publicly release the videos of her having sex with male escorts that he kept as blackmail. Souvenirs of the most humiliating nights of her life.
After the opening statement, the prosecution showed the hotel surveillance video of Combs assaulting Ventura and brought to the stand Israel Florez, an LA police officer who was a security guard at the hotel in 2016. He testified that after receiving a distressed call, he encountered Combs and Ventura on the sixth floor of the hotel. He said her eye was purple, and she declined his suggestion to call the police.
Prosecutors also discussed the abuse that allegedly took place at Combs' drug-fueled sex parties, known as "freak-offs." Monday's second witness, a stripper named Daniel Phillip, said he had sex with Ventura multiple times in 2012 and 2013 while Combs watched and that he witnessed multiple instances of Combs physically attacking her. "She literally jumped into my lap, and she was shaking, like literally her whole entire body was shaking," Phillip said of Ventura. "She was terrified."
Today, Ventura took the stand. As the New York Times reports, Ventura testified that Combs "stifled" her singing career and closely controlled her appearance, once describing her look as "too Mexican." He sometimes would confiscate her electronic devices, including her phone and laptop, as a form of punishment, and multiple times asked her to carry a gun for him during potentially violent encounters with figures such as industry rival Suge Knight. She said he made her refer to him as "pop pop" in emails because that's what she called her grandfather, which made her feel "weird."
Ventura described feeling "dirty," "disgusting," and "humiliated" after the freak-offs, which she continued participating in on an ongoing basis — in locations includingNew York City, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Ibiza, and Turks and Caicos — because "I didn’t want to make him upset. I didn’t want to make him angry and regret telling me about this experience that was so personal." During these events, Ventura said Combs was like a different person: "His eyes go black — the version of him I was in love with was no longer there."
If you or someone you know is undergoing sexual abuse, please visit rainn.org or contact the National Sexual Assault Helpline at 1-800-656-4673.
