Kid Cudi, the rapper whose brief relationship with Casandra Ventura is said to have led to angry threats by Sean Combs, is expected to take the witness stand on Thursday in the music mogul’s sex-trafficking and racketeering trial.
The rapper, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, is part of an important narrative at the heart of the racketeering conspiracy charge against Mr. Combs. The government has accused Mr. Combs of running a criminal enterprise for two decades and said his associates set fire to a rival’s car by slicing open the convertible top and dropping in a Molotov cocktail.
In 2023, after Ms. Ventura filed the lawsuit that kicked off Mr. Combs’s legal troubles, Mr. Mescudi confirmed that his car had exploded. But he has yet to speak publicly about the details of his role in the case.
Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him, and his lawyers have said he was “simply not involved” in the allegations of arson put forward by prosecutors.
While on the witness stand last week, Ms. Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, recalled the chaotic aftermath once Mr. Combs learned about her budding relationship with Mr. Mescudi in late 2011. She said Mr. Combs made the discovery while looking through her phone at the site of a “freak-off,” the sex marathons with male prostitutes at the center of the case.
Ms. Ventura testified that Mr. Combs lunged at her with a wine bottle opener and, later that day, threatened to release sexually explicit videos of her in retaliation.
“He was just so angry,” Ms. Ventura testified, “and when I was in the room, he told me about videos that he had that he was going to release, and how he was going to hurt Scott and I.”
She said Mr. Combs also threatened that Mr. Mescudi’s car would be “blown up” in his driveway.
Mr. Combs’s lawyers have acknowledged that he physically abused Ms. Ventura, but they have asserted that the violence was related to romantic jealousy or drug use — not sexual coercion. The defense has asserted that the sex described by the government was fully consensual.
Regina Ventura, Ms. Ventura’s mother, testified this week that she learned about Mr. Combs’s jealous rage around Christmastime in 2011. She said she learned that Mr. Combs wanted her to send him $20,000 via wire transfer because “he was angry that he had spent money” on her daughter following his discovery of the relationship with Mr. Mescudi.
Regina Ventura testified that she wired the money — taken from a home-equity loan — to an account associated with Bad Boy, Mr. Combs’s company, but that it was returned without explanation four or five days later.
Casandra Ventura said she ended the relationship with Mr. Mescudi because she feared what Mr. Combs was going to do. The three of them met at the Soho House in Los Angeles to discuss the brief relationship, she testified, alluding to fallout over Mr. Mescudi’s car.
“Scott said, ‘What about my vehicle?’” Ms. Ventura testified. “And Sean said, ‘What vehicle?’ And that was the end of the meeting.”
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
Ben Sisario, a reporter covering music and the music industry, has been writing for The Times for more than 20 years.
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