Casandra Ventura, the singer and model known as Cassie, began testifying for a federal jury on Tuesday morning in the sex-trafficking and racketeering case against Sean Combs.
The much-anticipated testimony was Ms. Ventura’s first major public comment since she filed a bombshell lawsuit against Mr. Combs, her former boyfriend and label boss, in late 2023, in which she accused him of having instituted a system of abuse and control over her life and career for more than a decade. That case led to a government investigation and Mr. Combs’s arrest in September 2024.
In the first minutes of her testimony, she was asked by prosecutors to describe the more than decade-long relationship she had with Mr. Combs.
“There were violent arguments that would usually result in some sort of physical abuse,” she answered. “Dragging, different things of that nature.”
Ms. Ventura, 38, who is visibly pregnant, wore a form-fitting brown outfit. As she entered court Mr. Combs turned back in his chair to see her walk in. His lawyers had asked the judge to have her present on the stand before the jury entered, a request that the judge apparently denied.
Her husband, Alex Fine, was allowed to be present in the courtroom for the beginning of her testimony, but the judge said Mr. Fine would have to leave during discussions of sexual assault.
Ms. Ventura was expected to recount for the jury how Mr. Combs instituted a system of abuse and control over her life and career for more than a decade. Prosecutors say the executive dangled ever-disappearing music opportunities; beat her when she stepped out of line; and plied her with drugs, forcing Ms. Ventura to have marathon sex sessions with male prostitutes while he taped the encounters.
Though legal filings in the case had merely identified her as Victim-1, there was never much doubt that the singer, who had been Mr. Combs’s on-and-off girlfriend for more than a decade, was the witness at the center of the racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking case against him.
It was Ms. Ventura’s decision in late 2023, following extensive therapy, to bring a federal lawsuit accusing Mr. Combs of rape and years of physical abuse — and his decision not to settle before it became public — that set into motion the criminal investigation that led to the trial. Combs and Ventura quickly reached an eight-figure settlement in the civil case.
Ms. Ventura was Mr. Combs’s on-and-off girlfriend — and employee — almost from the time they met in 2005 until she finally severed ties from his storied record label, Bad Boy, in 2019. Lawyers for Mr. Combs have portrayed the relationship as loving but deeply toxic while maintaining that any sexual arrangements were completely consensual.
Ben Sisario, a reporter covering music and the music industry, has been writing for The Times for more than 20 years.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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