In her final moments of direct testimony at the federal trial of Sean Combs on Wednesday, Casandra Ventura revealed the amount of a civil settlement that Mr. Combs and his businesses paid her after she filed a bombshell lawsuit in November 2023.
Mr. Combs’s lawyers had previously disclosed that the payment was a “substantial eight-figure settlement.” Ms. Ventura clarified in court that she had received $20 million.
The lawsuit, which accused Mr. Combs of years of physical abuse and sexual coercion, was settled one day after it was filed. But it precipitated a deluge of lawsuits and the federal criminal investigation that resulted in the music mogul’s arrest on racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking charges.
Mr. Combs has vehemently denied that he coerced Ms. Ventura — or anyone — into sex and has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him.
On the witness stand in Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan, Ms. Ventura testified for hours on Wednesday about injuries she said she received from physical abuse by Mr. Combs, and detailed the drug-dazed sex marathons with male escorts that she said occurred “hundreds” of times throughout their decade-long relationship.
The defense first disclosed months ago that before Ms. Ventura filed her lawsuit, a lawyer representing her approached counsel for Mr. Combs and offered to sell the rights to a book she had written that detailed her account of their relationship. The suggested price: $30 million.
On the stand, Ms. Ventura confirmed that proposal.
“I wanted to be compensated for the time, the pain,” Ms. Ventura testified, as well as for the “many, many years” trying to “fix” her life.
Ms. Ventura said she wrote the book during and after she went to rehab in 2023, which she described as involving “trauma therapy” and coming off Valium. She said her mother helped her get the materials organized. She decided to send chapters to Mr. Combs.
“I really wanted Sean to read the information,” Ms. Ventura testified. “I wanted him to understand what I had to learn to understand over that period.”
Ms. Ventura said she checked with one of his top employees, Kristina Khorram, to check if he read it, but she was told that people did not believe she was the author.
Mr. Combs’s lawyers have described Ms. Ventura’s attempt to sell the book rights as “extortion” in court papers. Ms. Ventura decided to ask for $30 million without having done research about book payments, she testified, but she thought that number would get his attention.
Olivia Bensimon contributed reporting.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
Joe Coscarelli is a culture reporter for The Times who focuses on popular music and a co-host of the Times podcast “Popcast (Deluxe).”
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