NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs say they’ll question R&B singer Cassie on Thursday about how infidelity fueled the combustible, nearly 11-year relationship between the two, as cross-examination of the prosecution’s star witness begins in Combs’ sex trafficking trial.
It will be the third day on the stand for the 38-year-old Cassie after two days of questioning by prosecutors in a Manhattan courtroom. She testified on Wednesday that Combs raped her when she broke up with him in 2018, after he locked her into a life of physical abuse by threatening to release degrading sexual videos of her.
Prosecutors accuse Combs of exploiting his status as a powerful music executive and entrepreneur to violently force Cassie and other women to take part in sexual encounters. He is charged with crimes including racketeering and sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion. Several other accusers are set to testify.
Combs denies all of the allegations and has pleaded not guilty. His attorneys acknowledge he could be violent, but say the sex he and others engaged in was consensual and that nothing he did amounted to a criminal enterprise.
Defense attorney Teny Geragos suggested on Wednesday during a discussion between lawyers and the judge that the game plan for Thursday was changing on the fly out of necessity. She didn’t get into particulars, but she told Judge Arun Subramanian that the questioning of Cassie by prosecutors “has gone much differently than I expected.”
Later, Combs’ lawyer Marc Agnifilo told the judge that questioning Cassie about infidelities was important.
“Everybody knows that we are going to bring up infidelities, that we’re going to want to bring up text messages of infidelities, and these text messages are often in colorful language,” he said.
Early Thursday, the judge denied a request by defense lawyers to introduce text communications between Combs and Cassie that would include references to specific sexual acts.
Defense lawyers have indicated that the cross examination of Cassie that will begin Thursday morning will likely be finished by the end of Friday’s court session.
Cassie has held up well over two days of direct questioning by prosecutors. She cried several times but for the most part has remained composed and matter-of-fact as she talked about some of the most sensitive subjects imaginable, in a courtroom packed with family and friends of Combs, journalists and one row of spectator seats occupied by Cassie’s supporters. Cassie is in the third trimester of pregnancy with her third child.
Cassie said Wednesday that Combs forced his way into her Los Angeles apartment and raped her on the living room floor after she said she was ending their relationship.
Cassie also said she didn’t feel she could refuse Combs’ demands for her to have “hundreds” of encounters with male sex workers — which he watched and controlled for hours and even days — because he would make her “look like a slut” if he made the videos public.
“I feared for my career. I feared for my family. It’s just embarrassing. It’s horrible and disgusting. No one should do that to anyone,” said Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie has.
She sued Combs in 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. Within hours, the suit was settled for $20 million — a figure Cassie disclosed for the first time Wednesday — but dozens of similar legal claims followed from other women.
Combs, 55, has been jailed since September. He faces at least 15 years in prison if convicted. The trial is expected to last about two months.
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Associated Press journalists Julie Walker in New York and Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
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