A former stylist testified on Wednesday in Sean Combs’s trial that he had witnessed the music mogul beating his girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, and once heard her say she wanted to climb over a hotel balcony to escape Mr. Combs.
Deonte Nash, who worked as a stylist for Ms. Ventura (the singer Cassie) and befriended her, described a series of harrowing incidents involving the couple during their decade-long on-and-off relationship. Mr. Nash testified that he saw Mr. Combs repeatedly beat Ms. Ventura and threaten to release explicit videos of her. He also testified to witnessing her reluctance to join him for “freak-offs,” the coerced sexual marathons that are key to the government’s case against Mr. Combs.
Mr. Nash recalled a time in 2013 or 2014 when he was at Ms. Ventura’s apartment with her and another woman, an assistant to Mr. Combs who is being identified in court only as “Mia.” Mr. Nash said that Mr. Combs came to the apartment and began hitting Ms. Ventura repeatedly, until her head hit the edge of a bed frame, drawing blood.
“Look what y’all made me do,” Mr. Nash recalled Mr. Combs telling him and Mia.
Mr. Combs is charged with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and has denied having anything but consensual sex with women. Mr. Combs’s lawyers have admitted that he was violent with Ms. Ventura, saying there were incidents of domestic violence, but argued that his attacks are not evidence of sex trafficking.
Mr. Nash said he heard Mr. Combs threaten Ms. Ventura that he would release “sex tapes” of her. Mr. Nash said he suggested that Ms. Ventura call Mr. Combs’s bluff and allow him to release the tapes anyway since, Mr. Nash assumed, Mr. Combs would be on the tapes too. She told him that the tapes showed her having sex with other men, something that she said she didn’t want to do.
After an incident in around 2013 when Mr. Combs physically pushed her out of her own apartment, Ms. Ventura went to a hotel, Mr. Nash testified. Mr. Combs then demanded that Mr. Nash take him to see Ms. Ventura, he said.
The stylist said he entered the hotel and went to Ms. Ventura’s room, telling her that Mr. Combs was there to see her. She said “Oh, no,” Mr. Nash recounted, and headed to the balcony.
“She said that she was going to climb over the balcony,” Mr. Nash said.
Mr. Nash also said he witnessed Mr. Combs pressuring Ms. Ventura to leave her 29th birthday party to meet him, for what she said was a freak-off. At her apartment, Mr. Nash said, he saw Ms. Ventura packing sex toys and a wad of cash before reluctantly going with Mr. Combs.
“She didn’t want to go with him,” Mr. Nash testified.
Earlier in the day, police and fire officials testified about a trespassing and car fire at the Los Angeles home of Scott Mescudi, known as the rapper Kid Cudi, who last week described being the focus of the music mogul’s jealous rage.
Chris Ignacio, a Los Angeles police officer, said he and a partner were called to Mr. Mescudi’s home, located up winding, narrow roads in the Hollywood Hills, on the morning of Dec. 22, 2011, for a possible burglary.
When Officer Ignacio and his partner arrived, they saw a black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows in front of the house; the vehicle immediately took off down the street. Officer Ignacio said the license plate showed that the car was registered to Bad Boy Productions, Inc., one of Mr. Combs’s companies.
Mr. Jimenez, the arson investigator, said that he and a partner were called to the same address on the morning of Jan. 9, 2012 and saw a burned Porsche convertible in a driveway about 10 feet from the residence; the car’s cloth top had been cut. Inside the vehicle they found a glass malt liquor bottle and a “designer-type handkerchief” nearby.
Lawyers for Mr. Combs have said their client was “simply not involved” in the arson incident outlined in the indictment.
The story of Mr. Mescudi’s conflict with Mr. Combs is a key part of the government’s racketeering case. The government contends that the mogul intimidated Mr. Mescudi, and later directed the destruction of his car out of jealousy when Mr. Mescudi briefly dated Ms. Ventura.
Also Wednesday, the judge denied a request by defense lawyers for a mistrial, after they argued that prosecutors had unfairly suggested that Mr. Combs was responsible for the destruction of fingerprint evidence.
The defense objected to Mr. Jimenez’s confirmation that fingerprint cards collected by police from an earlier trespass at Mr. Mescudi’s home had been destroyed, and so could not be compared to fingerprints found weeks later when Mr. Mescudi’s car was destroyed.
Outside the presence of jurors, Mr. Combs’s lawyers argued that those questions suggested to the jury that Mr. Combs was somehow responsible for the destruction of the fingerprint cards. The prosecution countered that their questions were entirely proper. When jurors returned, the judge told them to disregard the exchange about the fingerprint cards.
Anusha Bayya contributed reporting.
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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