Diddy Trial: Cassie Ventura testifies about the 2016 hotel attack – National

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As Sean “Diddy” Combs' sex trafficking trial enters the third day, Combs' ex-girlfriend Kathy Ventura took the stand Wednesday to resume her testimony.

Ventura is considered a star witness for the prosecution, and her testimony is particularly valuable. A comb was captured in 2016 in a security video of a violent attack on Ventura in a hotel hallway.

Ventura sued the comb in 2023, alleging long-standing rape and abuse. The lawsuit was resolved within hours, but dozens of similar legal claims continued, touching on the criminal investigation.

On the first day of testimony, on the second day of her blockbuster trial, Ventura said she was under pressure to degrade her sexual encounters with paid sex workers. She also recounted how she was beaten multiple times by Combs when she did something that made him uncomfortable.

“You make the wrong face and do the next thing you know I'm being hit in the face,” she said.

Ventura accused Combs of gaining her subordination by threatening to publish a video of her with a male sex worker.

Combs' lawyers acknowledge that the rapper may be violent, but they argue that sexual conduct is consensual. They say he has nothing to do with sex trafficking or assault (the accusations he faces), but they argued that he just has a unique sexual inclination.

Day 3

Ventura returned to the witness stands during Combs' sex traffic trial before 10am Wednesday to answer questions raised by prosecutor Emily Johnson on the second day.

For three consecutive days, ju umpire watched hotel surveillance footage of the 2016 attack on Ventura, but there was no sound in the video. She said she recalled that the flowers threw a vase full of flowers.

“I couldn't get hit. I remember hitting a wall. He screamed at me and threw it at me,” she said.

Ventura said as she was about to leave the hotel, Combs said, “I told him I wasn't going to leave him there. I couldn't.”

Prosecutors showed two photos of Ventura following a hotel attack and text message between the former couple.

Ventura said she took a selfie on an Uber from the hotel. She testified that her lips were swollen and had dark eyes under her sunglasses.

Combs texted Ventura after the attack, saying, “The police are here,” and asked her to call him. In response to Combs, Ventura said she had the film premiere of “The biggest thing I've ever done in my life,” and now she had “fat lips” and black eyes.

“Leave me far away,” she texted him.

Ventura said Combs claimed that police were trying to arrest him and that if she didn't answer his phone, she would “never listen to me again.”

Ventura's friend called the police after the attack and they showed up at her apartment to question her, but she said she didn't want to tell them who attacked her.

“Want to protect Sean?” Johnson asked.

“Of course,” replied the venture. “At that moment, I didn't want to hurt him that way. I wasn't ready.”

Ventura said after the attack, Combs appeared in her apartment and heard “crashing outside the door” and “slap, kick, screaming.”

She said she went to the house of D-Roc, one of Combs' security guards, not long after the attack “to feel safe.” She then went to Combs' house and did something worthy of the premiere of the upcoming moves of the romantic comedy she starred in.

The premiere took place two days after the hotel attack and the ju-degrees were shown photos of the comb and Ventura at an afterparty. She pointed out the bruises she saw in the photo and said she couldn't hide all the damage with makeup.

Prosecutors presented a 2016 text message from combs to Ventura about freak-off. He suggested that they have a “proper” freak-off where the drug ketamine is not involved.

In his text message, he wrote that a “successful” freakoff is “when remembering.”

“I won't raise you again until you feel that way,” he wrote.

Ventura said ketamine was her favorite drug during freakoff because it was “very dissociated.”

She then discussed how Freak-Off videos became “Black Mail Materials.” She said when Combs was mad at her, he often reminded her of sexually explicit videos he had saved.

“One day, I dated someone else, and that's all. 'I'm going to put out two embarrassing videos of you,” she said.

She said the video ruined everything she was working and “can make me look like a woman.”

“I was afraid of my career. I was afraid of my family. It's just embarrassing. It's scary and disgusting. You shouldn't do that to anyone,” she said.

In a 2013 text message, she wrote to Combs:

Combs told her he deleted them, but their relationship once said he saw a video that he claimed to have deleted them.

When Johnson asked Ventura if he had ever tried to fight back when Combs chose to fight her, she said she had tried early in their relationship, but learned that “it can escalate more fights and make it worse for herself.”

Ventura testified that she has an “off and on” addiction with opiates. She said she took her to come down from a party drug that included ecstasy.

“The opium made me feel numb, so I was very dependent on them,” she told the court, “I didn't want to feel what was going on in my mind, in my life, in my life, in real time. It was just an escape for me.”

She also testified that she had a persistent urinary tract infection (UTI) while she and the comb were doing freak-off. She says she will continue to take part in the bad off-off despite the infection, calling the pain “terrifying.”

Trend now

In another text message between Ventura and Combs, she told him that she had pain in her tongue. Ventura told the court that she thought the pain was from taking drugs and having oral sex during freak-off.

Comb replied with Ventura, “Sorry.”

After going crazy, Ventura said she emotionally “it felt really empty and I was terrible.” She also said, “It felt like I did my job.”

Ventura said during a silly off with the other male escorts, Combs said, “I'll put my hand on me.”

“He grabs me. Push me down. Hit me to the side of your head. Kick me. You'll give it a name,” Ventura said.

On one occasion in 2013, while packing to go to Drake's OVO Music Festival in Toronto, Ventura said Combs “attacked” a friend and threw her into the bed frame.

She said when Combs went to attack her, her friend “hopped onto his back.”

Venture says she suffers from a “pretty important gouache” above her left eye, and because of Combs' security, she takes her to a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, stitching the wound together.

She texted the comb a photo of the later injuries, “So you remember.”

“I don't know when it's going to stop. You pushed it too much. And then you kept pushing it. Sad,” Combs replied.

Ventura said she has permanent scars on her brows from the 2013 altercation.

She also spoke about attending the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, revealing that after participating in the fight, Combs drove her away from the yacht they were staying in.

Comb accused Ventura of taking drugs from him and forced him to leave the boat without shoes, passport or other belongings.

She said she was going to stay at the hotel where Combs employees are staying.

She testified that while they were on a plane returning from the festival, Combs pulled up a freak-off video on his laptop and told her he said he was “embarrassing.”

“I just felt trapped,” she told the court.

After the plane landed in New York, Combs said he wanted to go crazy, she said.

“At that point, I was willing to do whatever he tried to intimidate me and threaten me,” she said. “I didn't want to be scared anymore. That was one thing that made him feel like I was good at.”

Ventura read a text message she sent to Combs in 2017. She writes that “Nothing Good” comes out of Freakoff.

“You treat me like Ike Turner,” she wrote, referring to Tina Turner's ex-husband who physically abused the singer.

What he is going to trial

US prosecutors claim that for 20 years behind the scenes, Combs had forced and abused women with the help of a network of fellow networks who silenced the victims through fearful mail and violence.

Combs is faced with charges that include a freak-off description defined in court documents as “a sex performance in which Combs is placed, directed, masturbated and often recorded electronically.”

Prosecutors accused Combs of suffocating, crashing, kicking and dragging him, and silenced people, prosecuting him, according to the people. One indictment alleges that the comb hanged someone from the balcony.

Dozens of men and women allege in lawsuits that abused them, but the trial highlights the claims of four women.

Comb is charged with sex trafficking, conspiracy to engage in prostitution and assault on transport. He denied all charges against him, opting to go to trial instead, and refused a plea deal.

If convicted in a New York court, he could face life in prison.

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Summary of testimony from the second day

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Global News covers the entire Diddy Trial. Please check for updates.

– Using Michelle Butterfield and Associated Press Files from Global News

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