Singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, a former girlfriend of Sean “Diddy” Combs and a key witness in the federal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial of the music mogul, returned to the witness stand in New York City on Wednesday morning, as the high-profile trial enters its third day.
Ventura, who is eight and a half months pregnant, began her second day of testimony by revisiting the hotel surveillance footage of her 2016 assault by Combs. She said Combs threw a vase at her.
“I didn’t get hit. I remember it hitting the wall. He was yelling at me and threw it at me,” she said, adding that Combs apparently told her “that I wasn’t going to leave him there. That I couldn’t”
The jury was then shown two photos of Ventura after the hotel assault where she’s seen with a swollen lip. She said she also had a black eye beneath her sunglasses.
Ventura was asked again about the various escorts she says she was forced to hire, with Combs’s money, to take part in the “freak-offs” – she has named more than a dozen since her testimony began.
“That was just my job, really. It was expected of me,” she said.
In a 2016 text message shown in court, Combs is seen asking Ventura to have a “proper” “freak-off” without the use of ketamine. Combs claimed that a “successful” “freak-off” was only “when we remember”, while Ventura noted that she preferred ketamine during “freak-offs” because “it was very dissociative”.
Combs would often weaponize the videos he had of Ventura taking part in the “freak-offs”, she said. She noted that on her birthday one year, Combs reminded her of the videos he had in his possession after she refused to leave her friends to go with him to a “freak-off”.
“It is horrible and disgusting, no one should do that to anyone,” she said. “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.”
The 38-year-old testified on Tuesday that during her decade-long on-and-off relationship with Combs, she endured years of physical abuse, control and violence, and detailed drug-fueled sexual encounters involving male escorts that she said were directed by Combs.
She described Combs as having control over nearly every aspect of her life and testified that arguments would sometimes turn violent, telling the court that Combs would “mash my head, knock me over, drag me, kick me”.
Ventura filed a lawsuit in 2023 against Combs, accusing him of physical and sexual abuse. Though the two settled that lawsuit for an undisclosed sum, it prompted a federal investigation that led to Combs’s arrest in September 2024.
Combs faces charges including racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty and denied all allegations.
Over the course of her several-hour testimony on Tuesday, Ventura became emotional at moments, pausing to take deep breaths or to cry. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue and periodically rested her hands on her pregnant belly.
Ventura recounted the multiday drug-fueled sex sessions, known as “freak-offs”, which she claimed Combs directed and “choreographed”.
Ventura testified that she did not wish to engage in the encounters that involved a male escort, and that each time she would take drugs, often MDMA, or ecstasy, that she said Combs supplied, which would help her stay awake and also allow her to “disassociate”, she said.
The “freak-offs”, Ventura told the jury, made her feel “horrible”, “worthless” and “humiliated”. But she said that she was young and in love with Combs, and felt obligated to participate in them because she didn’t want to make Combs “angry”.
“I wanted to make him happy,” she said. “I didn’t know what ‘no’ could turn into.”
At one point during testimony, she told the court: “Make the wrong face, and the next thing I knew, I would get hit in the face.”
Ventura also recounted when she first met Combs in 2005 when she was 19, describing him as a “larger-than-life entrepreneur, musician”. She told the court how she went on to sign a 10-album deal with Combs’s record label, Bad Boy Records, but only ended up releasing one album.
The trial, expected to last at least eight weeks, is not being televised.
If convicted, Combs, who has been jailed since his arrest last year, could spend the rest of his life in prison.
In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org.
