50 Cent isn’t scheduled to testify in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex-trafficking trial, but the Power franchise executive producer captured the courtroom spotlight today with a well executed swipe at his longtime nemesis.
Coming off the Memorial Day long weekend, Tuesday morning saw former Diddy aide Capricorn Clark on the stand for the prosecution with insider intel on the alleged violence, threats, polygraph tests, and dual kidnappings the witness said she experienced over her various stints working for the “I’ll Be Missing You” performer.
Expected to last at least another six to seven weeks, the criminal trial of the much-accused and currently incarcerated Combs follows his arrest last September on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and more. The 55-year-old Combs faces the rest of his life behind bars in federal prison if found guilty by the jury in this case.
Sometimes overcome with emotion and with the blue sweater-clad Combs sitting near-by in Judge Arun Subramanian’s lower Manhattan courtroom, Clark also detailed for the jury the multiple beatings she says she saw Diddy unleash on his on-and-off girlfriend Cassie Ventura over the years. Additionally, in one more piece of the prosecution’s often plodding building of the criminal case, Clark spoke of her then jealous boss Combs’ beef with Kid Cudi. More acutely she noted unfulfilled vows by Combs to “kill” Kid Cudi at one point while the acclaimed rapper was briefly involved with Ventura in 2011.
As anyone who knows hip hop knows, Kid Cudi wasn’t the only rapper Combs and his armed posse had tensions with.
Former personal assistant Clark told the 12-person jury Tuesday that Combs told her he “had an issue with 50 Cent.” Now, with Combs and the “In Da Club” performer-born-Curtis Jackson having tossed verbal and social media grenades at each other for years and years, any issue between the two is old news.
What was revealed today was that Combs took those issues a little bit harder than was previously suggested. Under oath, Clark said Tuesday that after an MTV event with 50 Cent in attendance a few years back, she heard Combs tell his then manager, the now deceased Chris Lighty, that he had problems with the often provocative Jackson. “I don’t like all the back and forth,” Clark said an irritated Combs remarked off the event with 50. “I don’t do that, I like guns,” she says Diddy went on to tell Lighty, in what Clark took as both a threat and a reference to the near fatal shooting (as dramatically depicted in the Jim Sheridan directed 2005 movie Get Rich or Die Tryin’) the then-unknown 50 suffered in May 2000 in Queens, NY over a drug deal.
Never one to miss an opportunity to mock Diddy or produce a critical documentary about him, 50 Cent went online today not long after Clark, who worked for the Den of Thieves star too at one point, told the story on the stand. “Wait a minute PUFFY’s got a gun, I can’t believe this I don’t feel safe,” a sarcastic 50 posted on his Instagram Tuesday morning. “LOL,” he added, sticking it to Diddy.
Neither Combs nor his lawyers have addressed the 50 Cent story Clark told today, at least not yet.
Entering a not guilty plea last year in this criminal trial, Combs, as he has in the dozens and dozens of cases against him, including the quickly settled ($20 million) civil abuse and assault action by Ventura in November 2023, says he did nothing wrong. In fact, as his defense pitched in their opening statement on May 12, while the baby oil-lathered “freak-offs” and more that were part of a swinger and voyeuristic- fueled lifestyle may come across as unseemly to some, everything was consensual between adults. To that, Combs and his team basically assert the feds are simply prudes with subpoena powers.
Going into explicit, often embarrassing and frequently harrowing recollections of her 2007 to 2018 relationship with the admitted domestic violence-abusive Combs, a very very pregnant Ventura was the star witness for Week 1 of the May 12 starting trial. Amidst testimony from some male sex workers who participated for cash in the drug juiced and often filmed “freak-offs” Combs supposedly strong-armed Ventura into ultimatums of leaking those videos and more beatings, the “Me & U” singer’s mother also was in the witness box, as was Kid Cudi a.k.a. Scott Mescudi himself.
Under concerns about safety, the feds are keeping their witness list close to the chest, but we know various L.A. and NYC law enforcement officials are anticipated to testify this week. One individual who will almost certainly not be testifying in the trial is the much-vaulted and much discussed Victim-3. A key component of the prosecution’s case, the former Combs girlfriend going under the moniker “Gina” was supposed to take the stand to go in-depth on the abuse and criminal activity she suffered and saw from Combs.
Problem is, about a week before the trial started, the prosecution admitted to Judge Subramanian and the defense team during jury selection that they were suddenly not able to get in touch with the out of state Victim-3, nor her attorney. With a looming risk of the 10-lawyer deep Marc Agnifilo, Teny Geragos and Brian Steel-led defense maybe choosing to move for a mistrial, the government worked to get Victim-3/Gina in court. Put on the shelf for the judge, though not forgotten by the defense if needed for an appeal, the status of Victim-3 has now become clearer. At this point, she will not be a part of the prosecution’s case – – which will cause fallout no matter what side of the matter you are on.
Another potential problem for the prosecution is the convoluted realities of Combs’ business world and personal life and the control the deep pocketed Bad Boy Records founder had over his employees, label signings and lovers – some of which like Ventura were the same people. As Clark made obvious today with her own settlement with her ex-boss and an attempt as recently as a year ago to work for him again, black and white moral judgements were rare in Diddyland.
A fact that appears, at this stage, to hinder the government’s intention is to establish that Combs created a criminal racketeering enterprise and a conspiracy. Over the past two weeks, the prosecution has been laying a foundation for its case, but very slowly and meticulously – one could even say mind-numbing. If the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York really believes, as they indicated today, they’ll wrap up their case a week early, they might want to step it up a notch or two to seal the deal with the jury.
No matter the strategy, time is of the essence. Judge Subramanian has set court to run daily from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET. and promised jurors they will be done before the July 4th holiday.
The post 50 Cent Mocks Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Tough Guy Talk As Ex-Aide Details Bad Blood Between Duo In Trial Testimony appeared first on Deadline.
