Cassie walks in to court without looking at Sean Combs…
.. Sean “Diddy” Combs’s ex-girlfriend Cassie returns to court for a second day to give evidence against the hip-hop mogul in his sex-trafficking trial. Diddy denies all charges against him.
Both Sean Combs and star prosecution witness Cassie Ventura are in the courtroom, and the jury is also being brought in.
For the second day in a row, Ms Ventura, 38, walks into the courtroom without looking towards her former partner at the defence table.
She is wearing a light grey dress with a jacket.
Combs, 55, is wearing a grey sweater over a white shirt.
Hotel ‘attack’ video shown in court – with Combs dressed in socks and towel
Prosecutor Emily Johnson resumes her questioning of singer and model Cassie Ventura, who is the key witness for the case against Sean Combs.
The pair were in an on-off relationship for about 10 years from 2007-2008 and yesterday Ms Ventura told the court he had subjected her to years of physical and psychological abuse through “freak offs” with male escorts, when Diddy would watch on as she had sex with them.
Ms Johnson asks her if there were ever times when she tried to fight back and she says yes, mainly in the earlier stages of their relationship.
Jurors are now being directed once again to the incident at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016. Footage of Combs running down a hotel hallway and then appearing to beat Ms Ventura outside a lift – wearing only socks with a towel around his waist – has been played in court. The video was first made public in May 2024.
Ms Ventura said yesterday that she was trying to leave a freak off when Combs caught up with her.
Now, she tells the court that during the incident he threw a vase. “I just remember it coming towards me,” she says. “It hit the wall.”
She says Combs was yelling her at her but she doesn’t remember his exact words.
Jurors are shown text messages exchanged by Sean Combs and Cassie Ventura on 5 March 2016, after the alleged attack at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles.
The court also sees a photo of Ms Ventura wearing dark glasses and a hoodie.
“That is me with a fat lip,” she says. The lawyer asks why she is wearing sunglasses, and she tells the court she had a black eye.
Yesterday, she told the court that Combs hit her during a freak off at the hotel.
In the text exchange detailed in court, Combs tells Ms Ventura to “call me now”, and then again asks her to call, saying “the cops are here”.
Ms Johnson asks what Ms Ventura’s reaction was to this. She says she wanted to be alone and didn’t care at that time.
Combs told her he was “getting arrested”, but this wasn’t true, the court hears.
Police did go to her apartment, and Ms Ventura says she answered a few questions, but did not say who she was talking about as she didn’t want to hurt Combs. She says there was “too much going on, it was a lot”.
Asked if she wanted to protect him, she replies: “Yes, of course.”
Jurors hear that Combs went to her apartment later on. Ms Ventura says there was “chaos” outside the door – “kicking, yelling and banging”.
Court shown pictures of 13 escorts who took part in freak offs
Yesterday, Cassie Ventura told the court she had a film premiere coming up around the time of the hotel incident, which happened on 5 March 2016.
A photo of her and Combs from a premiere is now shown in court. She says she has a lot of make-up on covering bruises on her face.
She says she thought at the time that the rapper was “sick” to think that it was okay to do that to her and wanted him to stay away.
This photo below is one that comes up on news agencies but it is not clear exactly which picture was shown to jurors.
Cassie and Combs at The Perfect Match premiere on 7 March 2016
Cassie and Combs at The Perfect Match premiere on 7 March 2016
zz/Galaxy/STAR MAX/IPx 2016 – AP
The court is then shown photographs of 13 escorts who took part in the freak offs that have been described throughout the trial.
Ms Ventura told the court yesterday that these sex sessions with male escorts could last for hours – with the longest going on for four days – and that Combs liked to “direct” them as he watched and masturbated.
Ash, Tommy, Jake, Greg and Jonathan are among the names of the escorts being shown in court, jurors are told, but Ms Ventura does not remember all of them.
She tells the court that she contacted these men, “based on who Sean wanted – that was my job, it was expected of me by Sean”.
Asked if she had sex with all the men, she says yes. She’s not sure if they were all paid, she adds, but those who were were paid with Combs’s money
