As Sean Combs’s trial moves into its seventh day of testimony, investigators pursuing him on racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking charges are trying to sketch a wider picture of his time with the singer Casandra Ventura, who was his off-and-on girlfriend for more than a decade.
Ms. Ventura, who performs music as Cassie, testified for four days last week; now witnesses including another artist signed to Mr. Combs’s label, Ms. Ventura’s estranged best friend and a former personal assistant to Mr. Combs have been asked by prosecutors to corroborate, and in some cases amplify, aspects of Ms. Ventura’s account. Her mother is also expected to testify this week.
The first witness on Tuesday is scheduled to be David James, the assistant who took the stand late in the day on Monday. Mr. James described his duties as an aide to Mr. Combs in terms that resembled those of many high-profile, high-pressure corporate jack-of-all-trades. He rose early, arranged Mr. Combs’s calendar and kept detailed spreadsheets of his boss’s travel preferences. At his job interview, he told Mr. Combs, “I can’t stop, I won’t stop” — an expression of his work ethic wrapped in a nod to a hit song by the Lox, one of the signature rap acts for Bad Boy, Mr. Combs’s company.
But even in the few minutes Mr. James was on the stand, he testified of hearing Ms. Ventura express frustration at her situation. On a cigarette break with her on a dock near Mr. Combs’s Miami mansion, soon after he started the job in 2007, he said she remarked to him, “Man, this lifestyle is crazy.” Mr. James said he agreed, and that Ms. Ventura added, “I can’t get out,” and that Mr. Combs “oversees so much of my life.”
Prosecutors have worked to establish that Mr. Combs had coercive power over Ms. Ventura, in part because she loved him, but also because he held the reins on her career and physically beat her.
Mr. Combs has acknowledged the violence, but he has denied the sex trafficking and other accusations of criminal conduct that have been lodged against him. His lawyers say Mr. Combs engaged in perhaps unconventional marathon sex sessions with Ms. Ventura, but they say it was fully consensual and he has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Before Mr. James took the stand on Monday, the jury heard from two women: Dawn Richard, a member of two musical groups formed by Mr. Combs, and Kerry Morgan, a close friend of Ms. Ventura’s throughout most of her relationship with the mogul. Both women offered chilling testimony in which they said they had witnessed Mr. Combs assaulting Ms. Ventura.
Ms. Richard was a member of the R&B girl group Danity Kane, seen in the popular MTV reality show “Making the Band,” as well as a trio called Diddy — Dirty Money. She testified that Mr. Combs once punched Ms. Ventura with a closed fist before an event in Central Park in New York, and attempted to hit her with a skillet of eggs in the kitchen of his home in Los Angeles. She came under tough cross-examination over inconsistencies in the accounts she has given of the skillet incident over a series of interviews with prosecutors before trial.
Ms. Morgan said she met Ms. Ventura when they were both high-school-age models. They became best friends, and over the course of their relationship Ms. Morgan became a regular part of the Combs entourage, traveling around the world with him and Ms. Ventura.
On a trip to Jamaica, she said, she heard Mr. Combs complain that Ms. Ventura was taking too long in the bathroom. He left, and she next heard Ms. Ventura’s “guttural,” “terrifying” screams, and saw Mr. Combs drag her by the hair down a long corridor. Outside, he pushed Ms. Ventura on the ground and her head smacked a brick surface. The two women later hid in a ditch nearby.
Ms. Morgan said she sometimes discussed with Ms. Ventura whether she should leave Mr. Combs, but that Ms. Ventura said she couldn’t, “because of her job, her car, her apartment — he controlled everything,” Ms. Morgan testified. After a rift in 2018, when Ms. Morgan said Mr. Combs struck her with a wooden hanger, the two women both say they never spoke to each other again; Ms. Morgan said she was only testifying in response to a subpoena.
Among the witnesses expected to follow Mr. James this week are Regina Ventura, Ms. Ventura’s mother; Jourdan Atkinson, a former personal chef for Mr. Combs who accused him of shoving her to the ground; and Sharay Hayes, who has described himself as an exotic dancer known as “Punisher.” (Ms. Ventura testified that a man known as Punisher participated in several freak-offs with her and Mr. Combs.)
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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