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 stand on Friday for further examination by Combs’s legal team.
Combs’s defense team resumed their cross-examination of Ventura on Friday morning, with questions focusing on the time around the 2016 video footage of Combs attacking Ventura at the elevator lobby of a hotel in Los Angeles, and Combs’s state of mind at that time.
Defense attorneys asked if Ventura previously told investigators that Combs was “blackout” during that incident, to which Ventura responded: “I believe he was intoxicated.”
Combs’s lawyers also showed the court text messages Ventura sent from a few days after the incident in which Ventura told Combs: “I’m not a rag doll. I’m somebody’s child.”
During some parts of cross-examination on Thursday , Combs’s lawyers seemed to be trying to establish that around the time of the 2016 assault in the hotel, Combs had been experiencing withdrawals from opiates, which influenced his behavior, and that his violence was connected to his drug use.
Ventura, who is eight and a half months pregnant, continued her testimony on Friday and said that she attended a 45-day in-patient treatment center in 2023 at the Willow House, an Arizona-based rehab program for women that “focuses on healing from intimacy and relationship issues, love and sex addiction, emotional trauma, and dual diagnosis”.
She said she took part in “neurofeedback” once a week while she was there to “help me with my trauma”.
“They hook your brain up to a machine and you watch something and it just kind of regulates your brain waves,” Ventura said, adding that she also did something called EMDR which “helps you recount memories”.
The defense also appeared to question Ventura’s account of her alleged 2018 rape by Combs, which she testified about earlier this week. They also suggested that Ventura revised the date of the incident from September 2018 to August 2018 in her statements over the years.
Ventura said she had consensual sex with Combs once more after the alleged rape, while she was dating her now husband, Alex Fine.
In previous testimony, she explained: “We’d been together 10 years; you just don’t turn feelings off that way.”
Combs’s lawyer asked on Friday: “Your now husband didn’t know that you were with Mr Combs at the time, correct?”
Ventura told the court that Fine later learned about both her having consensual sex with Combs one time as well as the alleged rape.
The defense also questioned Ventura on her current feelings towards Combs.
When asked if she hated the music mogul, Ventura replied: “I don’t hate him.”
“Do you still have love for him?” Combs’s attorney followed up.
“I have love for the past and what it was,” Ventura replied.
Before the lunch recess, Ventura testified that the last time she saw Combs was at the November 2018 memorial service for Kim Porter, the mother of three of Sean Combs’s children.
In the afternoon, Ventura denied a defense suggestion that she had been experiencing financial hardship before filing her civil lawsuit against Combs in November 2023, which resulted a $20m settlement just 24 hours after it was filed.
Combs’s attorney pointed out that Ventura, her husband and children moved in with her parents in Connecticut before she filed the lawsuit, and suggested that the relocation had been due to “financial issues”.
Ventura refuted that assertion, stating that the move had been part of a broader plan to move to the east coast and had nothing to do with money.
The defense also questioned Ventura about her decision to cancel a planned music tour after the lawsuit between her and Combs was settled.
“As soon as you saw that you were going to get the $20m, you canceled the tour because you didn’t need it anymore, right?” Combs’s attorney asked.
“That wasn’t the reason why,” Ventura responded.
The defense then presented a 2012 text message exchange between Ventura and Combs, in which Combs asked whether she wanted to have a “freak-off” … “one last time tonight”.
Ventura replied no, adding that she wanted to have a “freak off” for the “first time for the rest of our lives”.
The defense then abruptly concluded its cross-examination. The prosecution immediately began redirect and asked Ventura to read additional messages from that conversation to provide context.
“I want to see you, but I’m emotional right now,” Ventura wrote to Combs. “I don’t want to do one last time. I’d rather not do it at all.”
The prosecution also attempted to address the defense’s suggestion of a link between Combs’s drug use and his violence, asking Ventura whether doing drugs ever made her violent.
“I feel like drinking more so than drugs,” Ventura replied.
At one point on Friday afternoon, Ventura broke down in tears as a prosecutor questioned her about Combs beating her during the “freak-offs”.
She was then asked whether she would return the money from her settlement if it meant she never had to experience “freak-offs”.
“I’d give that money back if I never had to have ‘freak offs’,” Ventura testified. “If I never had to have ‘freak offs’, I would have had agency and autonomy … I wouldn’t have had to work so hard to get it back.”
After Ventura’s testimony concluded on Friday afternoon, her lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, issued a statement on how the week had been “extremely challenging, but also remarkably empowering and healing” for Ventura.
“I hope that my testimony has given strength and a voice to other survivors, and can help others who have suffered to speak up and also heal from abuse and fear. For me, the more I heal, the more I can remember. And the more I can remember, the more I will never forget,” Wigdor said on behalf of Ventura.
Fine, Ventura’s husband, also released a statement, saying: “Over the past five days, the world has gotten to witness the strength and bravery of my wife, freeing herself of her past. There has been speculation online surrounding how it must feel for me to sit there and listen to my wife’s testimony.”
He said he felt “pride” and “overwhelming love” during her testimony as well as “profound anger that she has been subjected to sitting in front of a person who tried to break her”.
“To him and all of those who helped him along the way, please know this: You did not. You did not break her spirit nor her smile that lights up every room. You did not break the souls of a mother who gives the best hugs and plays the silliest games with our little girls. You did not break the woman who has made me a better man,” he said.
He also noted that he did “not save Cassie”, but that “Cassie saved Cassie” and she “alone broke free from abuse, coercion, violence and threats”.
Ventura testified this week over the course of four days, detailing years ofphysical abuse she endured during her decade-long relationship with Combs.
After Ventura finished her testimony, the prosecution called Yasin Binda, a special agent with Homeland Security, to the stand.
Binda participated in searches related to the Combs investigation and was involved in Combs’ arrest last September at a Manhattan hotel.
Binda testified that authorities seized lubricants, pills, drugs, $9,000 in cash, and “mood lighting” from Combs’ hotel room the day of the arrest. The jury were shown images from the search, including some of bags filled with baby oil and lubricant.
Combs is facing charges including racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty and denies all allegations.
If convicted, Combs, who has been held in jail 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.
