R&B artist Cassie Ventura’s film premiere was days away in March 2016 when her then-boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs texted her asking what she was doing.

She already felt “trapped” in a cycle of bodily and sexual abuse by him, she instructed a New York federal jury this week, outlining 11 years of alleged beatings, sexual blackmail and a rape.

She claimed Combs threatened to leak movies of her sexual encounters with quite a few male intercourse employees whereas drug-intoxicated and glistening with child oil as he watched and orchestrated the occasions, referred to as freak-offs.

“If I pleased him with a freak-off, then my premiere would run smoothly,” she stated, in response to reporting from contained in the Manhattan courtroom from the Related Press.

What occurred subsequent may find yourself being the start of the tip of Combs’ public life.

Video footage from that March 2016 night time exhibits Combs punching and kicking Ventura as she cowers and tries to guard herself in entrance of an L.A. lodge elevator financial institution. He then drags her down the corridor by her hooded sweatshirt towards their lodge room. A second angle from one other digital camera captures Combs throwing a vase towards her. She suffered bruising to her eye, a fats lip, and a bruise that prosecutors confirmed was nonetheless seen through the film premiere two days later. She donned sun shades and heavy make-up on the purple carpet.

Ventura’s testimony is on the heart of the federal trial accusing Combs of racketeering conspiracy, intercourse trafficking, and transportation for prostitution.

Sweeping allegations

The federal indictment alleges that Combs and his associates lured feminine victims, typically beneath the pretense of a romantic relationship. Combs then allegedly used drive, threats of drive, coercion and managed substances to get ladies to have interaction in intercourse acts with male prostitutes whereas he sometimes watched in gatherings that Combs known as “freak-offs.” Combs gave the ladies ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to “keep them obedient and compliant” through the performances.

The freak-offs, which prosecutors say typically lasted for days, have been elaborately produced intercourse performances that Combs organized, directed, masturbated throughout, and sometimes recorded, in response to the indictment. Prosecutors allege in a detention memo filed in court docket that the freak-offs occurred often from a minimum of 2009 by 2023 and that the lodge rooms the place they have been staged typically sustained vital injury.

Combs’ alleged “criminal enterprise” threatened and abused ladies and utilized members of his enterprise to have interaction in intercourse trafficking, compelled labor, interstate transportation for functions of prostitution, coercion and enticement to have interaction in prostitution, narcotics offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice, prosecutors stated. In bringing so-called RICO costs, prosecutors in opening statements stated Combs was helped by cadre of firm workers, safety employees and aides. They allegedly helped manage the crime and “freak-offs” after which lined up the incidents. So far, Combs is the one one going through prison costs associated to the investigation.

Combs’ legal professional this week stated her consumer was removed from good however that the fees have been overblown.

“Sean Combs is a complicated man. But this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money,” Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos instructed jurors. “There has been a tremendous amount of noise around this case over the past year. It is time to cancel that noise.”

How Ventura and Combs met

Jurors heard that Ventura was 19 when she met the 37-year-old Combs in 2005, and she or he signed a 10-year contract along with his Dangerous Boy Data label. About two years later, he had Britney Spears come to her twenty first party, the place Ventura and Combs kissed and their relationship started, she stated. She testified that the freak-offs turned a lifestyle, and she or he even stepped away from her personal party for one.

Cassie Ventura, left, and Sean “Diddy” Combs arrive on the Los Angeles premiere of “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story” on the Writers Guild Theater on June 21, 2017, in Beverly Hills.

(Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP)

Combs, she instructed jurors, required her to let a male intercourse employee urinate in her mouth. That man and others have been paid 1000’s of {dollars} to have intercourse repeatedly for 36 to 48 hours, she instructed the jury.

On the stand, Ventura recognized 13 male intercourse employees by images introduced by prosecutors that she stated Combs’ had her recruit for the freak-offs. Hers and Combs’ relationship would finish on a day in 2018 when she met him for dinner and he raped her on her lounge flooring, she testified.

Violence

Throughout 4 days of testimony, Ventura, who’s eight and a half months pregnant, described being raped, crushed a minimum of six occasions, most severely in 2009.

Within the 2009 assault, she testified that Combs was “stomping” on her face after he found she was relationship rapper Child Cudi. Child Cudi, whose actual title is Scott Mescudi, had his automotive torched a short while afterward. Prosecutors allege in court docket papers that Combs ordered it.

Authorized evaluation

Authorized consultants say the testimony is designed to construct the federal case in opposition to Combs, even when on the floor it doesn’t seem immediately associated to the fees he’s going through.

“Why is the government talking about rape and assault when the charges are RICO and sex trafficking?” stated former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani. Nicely, he stated, “what separates sex trafficking from consensual sex between adults — which the defense is arguing — is force, fraud or coercion.”

“Ventura’s testimony that she was given drugs to the point of throwing up … and forced to have sex when she was menstruating or had a UTI is evidence of coercion,” he stated.

Rahmani stated that Ventura’s portrayal of Combs as a gun-brandishing mogul who beat her on a number of events, tracked her actions and despatched a safety workforce to search out her is proof of drive.

Then there have been the alleged threats. She recounted that in a business flight in 2013, Combs pulled out his laptop computer and commenced enjoying a freak-off recording as they sat collectively. She stated Combs instructed her that he was going to embarrass her and launch them.

“I feared for my career. I feared for my family. It’s just embarrassing. It’s horrible and disgusting. No one should do that to anyone,” Ventura stated.

Authorities raid Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Los Angeles house as a part of an ongoing intercourse trafficking investigation

(Eric Thayer / Related Press)

Rahmani stated the racketeering cost in opposition to Combs requires prosecutors to show the existence of a prison enterprise.

“People typically think of the mob, street gangs, or drug cartels, but any loose association of two or more people is enough like Combs’ entourage,” the previous federal prosecutor stated. They have to present two or extra predicate acts over 10 years.

“That is why the evidence of bribery, kidnapping, obstruction, witness tampering and prostitution is important,” he stated.

LAPD officer testimony

Israel Florez, a lodge safety guard who confronted Combs in 2016, now a Los Angeles Police officer, testified Combs flashed a bundle of money at him — one thing he believed was an tried bribe. He rejected it, he stated.

Combs’ protection is searching for to color Ventura as collaborating within the habits, recruiting and paying intercourse companions, buying narcotics and texting to push for freak-offs that have been a part of a swingers’ life-style. She is certainly one of 4 alleged victims within the case, with jurors anticipated to listen to from a minimum of three of them.

On Thursday, protection legal professional Anne Estevao had Ventura learn a sequence of loving texts to Combs and obtained Ventura to testify she’d watched Combs have intercourse with one other lady on a number of events. To assist the swingers’ protection, the lawyer produced a 2009 textual content the place the singer declared, “I’m always ready to freak off.”

Ventura sued Combs within the fall of 2023, accusing him of years of bodily and sexual abuse, triggering a cascade of lawsuits and allegations by others who say they’re victims of Combs and ultimately, a raid by Homeland Safety on his L.A. and Miami properties and his arrest. Ventura acknowledged Wednesday that she obtained a $20-million settlement inside days of submitting her lawsuit.

Combs legal professional pushes again

Throughout opening statements in a Manhattan federal courtroom, Geragos, certainly one of Combs’ protection attorneys, drew a distinction for jurors between the violence they’d hear testimony about and the fees Combs was going through, saying “domestic violence is not sex trafficking.”

She stated the video of Ventura’s assault within the lodge was indefensible, however that the singer “made a choice” to stick with Combs for 11 years.

After the assault, a pal known as police to Ventura’s house, she testified. However when officers arrived, she didn’t determine Combs because the offender.

The prosecutor requested her why she didn’t discuss. “In that moment, I didn’t want to hurt him that way. I wasn’t ready,” she replied.

On Thursday, the protection cross-examining Ventura sought to alter the narrative utilizing dozens of textual content messages between Combs and Ventura. In a July 2013 textual content message alternate, Comb’s protection lawyer famous that Cassie raised the thought of getting a “freak-off,” writing to Combs: “Wish we could’ve FO’d before you left.”

Utilizing the textual content message exchanges, the protection lawyer highlighted Ventura’s admitted jealousy over the eye he gave different ladies.

“You’re making me look like a side piece and that is not what I thought I was,” Cassie instructed Combs in a 2013 textual content message.

Estevao tried to recast the lodge incident as the results of the 2 taking a “bad batch” of the psychedelic stimulant MDMA throughout a “freak-off” earlier than the lodge beating.

Throughout her testimony this week, Ventura testified that Combs allegedly overdosed on opioids whereas partying on the Playboy Mansion in 2012. Whereas she wasn’t there, she stated, he instructed her about it.

Ventura’s testimony ended on Friday.

The Related Press contributed court docket testimony for this evaluation.