UPDATE, 11:09 AM: The defense’s cross-examination of Cassie Ventura at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex-trafficking trial has concluded.
In barely any time at all after returning from the lunch break, Combs’ lawyer Anna Estevao suddenly concluded her questioning of the very pregnant star witness. That abrupt move came after a series of questions where Estevao appeared confused about dates and sequence of events, such as when Ventura and her family moved back East from LA in 2023.
The end of the cross-examination appears to have sped up the timeline to get the eight and a half months pregnant Ventura out of the witness box by EOD. The prosecution is soon to begin a re-direct which they earlier today said should take no more than half an hour.
Overall, the trial, which could see Combs behind bars for life if found guilty, is expected to last eight-to-ten weeks.
PREVIOUSLY, 8:58 AM (UPDATED with more details) On Cassie Ventura’s likely last day as a witness in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex-trafficking trial, the very pregnant singer was in a credibility vs. coercion standoff Friday with her ex-boyfriend’s defense lawyers.
“You always want to show me that you have the power and you knock me around”, the jury this morning heard Ventura read aloud a 2016 text she sent then boyfriend Combs after the Bad Boy Records founder brutally attacked her in an L.A. hotel hallway as the singer tried to escape one of the couple’s now infamous drug-fueled “freak-offs.” The message continued: “I’m not a ragdoll I’m someone’s child.”
Captured in March 2016 on the InterContinental’s security cameras and investigated by one of the hotel’s guards at the time, the beating of Ventura by the half-naked Diddy has been widely seen in and out of court since it was obtained and broadcast by CNN last spring. Sitting with his defense team in Judge Arun Subramanian’s lower Manhattan courtroom, a steely-eyed and fidgeting Combs Friday morning listened as the ‘Me & U’ singer resumed her testimony under questioning from attorney Anna Estevao.
On the stand answering questions about her own 2023 time at a rehab and trauma program in Arizona and receiving PTSD treatment, Ventura was also asked today by Estevao if she knew Diddy entered a rehab facility soon after the L.A. hotel incident nine years ago. The witness admitted she had a hard time recalling that step by Combs in any detail.
The defense lawyer also wanted to know, as Ventura had said previously, she believed her now-ex had “blacked out” from substance abuse at the time of the hotel melee. “I believe he was intoxicated,” Ventura replied. She added “everybody’s definition of blackout is different.”
What was not different in anyone’s definition was Ventura’s declaration that Combs took or promised to take her passport, other ID and phone(s) when he was angry with her or thought she was cheating on him. To that, the court heard Combs reacted harshly when he suspected something was going on between Ventura and singer (and no stranger to controversary himself) Chris Brown and an unnamed NFL player.
In the undeniably complicated and unorthodox relationship Ventura and Combs had from 2007-2018, such actions could prove a significant factor in proving the charges against the defendant and the lack of agency Ventura a.k.a. Victim-1 actually had.
Emphasizing their client’s drug abuse (which was spotlighted by revelations of a 2012 OD on Thursday) and Combs’ short temper when under the influence, the defense team have tried to paint the couple’s years together as two broken people out of control and feeding into each other’s worst, most raw and most depraved wants. It is a portrait that the defense concedes is sad and perhaps pathetic but not a crime under the charges Combs in facing.
However, a crying Ventura’s vivid recollection in testimony on May 14 of being raped in 2018 by Diddy in her L.A. apartment after they broke up could prove a hard blow to the defense’s narrative. Today, Estevao probed Ventura for missteps and conflicting statements in her retelling of the alleged rape both in court and to law enforcement.
While that effort didn’t really go much of anywhere, the defense lawyer herself introduced a new element when Estevao brought up Combs having bi-polar disorder. Seemingly never mentioned before, information was raised in the context of Combs acting “strangely” at the “closure” dinner he and Ventura were having in Malibu on the day the producer is said to have raped his then ex-girlfriend seven years ago.
Arrested on September 16 at an upscale NYC hotel lobby, the 55-year-old Combs is charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. The allegations in the initial and since amended indictment could see the Grammy-winning performer in prison for the rest of his life if he’s found guilty. Up against dozens of civil suits claiming assault and abuse as well, Combs has denied all accusations, entered not guilty pleas, and exclaimed he is being persecuted for his unconventional but fully consensual sexual obsessions by a prudish government and gold diggers.
With statements like the 2009 text “I’m always ready to freak-off,” from Ventura to Combs that was read out yesterday, the prosecution knows that on re-direct Friday it will have to make sure the Step-Up 2 actress puts the most glaring of the litany of correspondence in some context. Under a discussion with the judge before the jury was brought in, the prosecution pledged to have a speedy re-direct and conclude Ventura’s testimony if the defense can get its cross-examination done by 4:30 p.m. ET at the latest.
Irritated Friday by the defense’s sometimes almost dithering approach to pulling up texts and other evidence, Judge Subramanian has made it crystal clear that he sees it as essential the about-to-give-birth-any-day Ventura is out of the witness box ASAP. The original desire was to have her testimony wrapped up before the 12:30 p.m. ET lunch break, but that plan has evidently been revised. The change of plan is in part due to protests by the defense. The lawyers say they have a lot to ask the star witness before they lose her permanently once she goes into the hospital for the birth of her and husband Alex Fine’s third child.
To punctuate how serious that timetable is, earlier today the feds sent a letter to the judge floating that Combs and his defense actually wanted Ventura to go into labor on the stand so they could use the flurry as pretext for a new mistrial motion. “The inefficiency of cross-examination yesterday raises the inference that the defendant hopes to accomplish precisely that outcome,” the document starkly declared. (Read the letter here).
The importance of Ventura to the government’s case cannot be overstated, which is one reason the jurors have been shown explicit and shocking otherwise sealed photographs of the baby oil and drug-drenched “freak-offs.”
One can, as the Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey-led prosecution certainly does, draw a straight line between the currently incarcerated Combs in court now and the abuse and assault suit Ventura filed against him in November 2023. Still, while sticking to his line that he did nothing wrong, Combs did settle with Ventura within 24 hours of the filing of her suit. Sources told Deadline at the time that Combs paid Ventura “around $30 million,” but on May 14 the singer revealed officially for the first time it was actually $20 million.
On May 15, Ventura was asked by defense lawyer Estevao if she recognized that Combs’ “career was ruined at that point,” after her short-lived and much-covered suit was filed. Without much of a pause, Ventura answered: “I could understand that, yeah.”
As the suits piled up and the status conscious Combs became a pariah in the music industry and almost everywhere else, the innocence proclaiming mini-mogul did apologize for the severity of his abuse in his relationship with Ventura after the security camera footage emerged in May of him hitting and kicking her in 2016. At the time, as it also was revealed that Combs bought the footage for $50,000 the day after the incident, Ventura’s lawyers slammed his apology as “disingenuous.”
Whether or not that is true, it is a fact that the apology has since been deleted form Combs’ social feeds. Now, after dispute the accuracy of the video for several months, the defense concedes that the footage is disturbing as an example of domestic violence. Centering the incident as a fight over a phone, as attorney Teny Geragos did in the defense’s opening statement, Combs’ team asserted what everybody can see doesn’t rise to the charges the feds have hit the “All About the Benjamins” performer with.
After the U.S. Attorney’s office intent earlier this week to strongly show that self-admitted domestic violence predator Combs was guilty of the charges in his constant coercive efforts to force a fundamentally unwilling Ventura into filmed sex with male escorts and more with threats of battering, career disaster and public humiliation, the defense sought to flip the script Thursday. To that, with gentle nudging and a distinct reading of evidence like the text message, Estevao tried Thursday and today to reiterate the defense’s opening statement of May 12 that while Combs can be a violent drug-using ass, Ventura was an active and consenting agent in everything the couple did – not matter how sordid.
Correspondingly, on the stand for nearly 15 hours so far this week, a sometimes tearful, triggered and voice-cracking Ventura has more than held her own against defense lawyer Estevao since yesterday. In fact, as most of the day was spent examining the copious texts and emails Combs and Ventura sent each other over their 11-year on-and-off “toxic relationship,” elements of the defense’s tactics seemed to almost be doing the job of the prosecution. An agitated Combs could be seen repeatedly passing notes to lawyers and speaking directly to Estevao at one point during a break.
Today Diddy seemed more composed, though how long that will last is TBD. During a short break Friday, Combs was alone at the defense table as his lawyers left the room to prepare for the rest of the morning session. Looking bored, the now white haired and once entourage leading defendant had a staffer help him with the position of the monitor in front of him.
With the schedule in flux, it is unknown right now when the prosecution’s next witness, Dawn Richard, will begin her testimony. Once one of the singers from the Combs’-fronted MTV series Making the Band and other Diddy projects, Richard in September last year sued her past producer for rape and more. Filed right around the time Combs was arrested in this criminal case, that civil case is ongoing.
This criminal case is expected to last eight to 10 weeks. Judge Subramanian told the jury when they were seated on May 12, promising to free them up by the July 4th holiday. At the stop and start pace the proceedings are currently going, that deadline could prove elusive.
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