NOTE: The following article contains disturbing details and video footage. Please read at your own discretion.
The mother of Cassie Ventura testified on Tuesday in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex-trafficking and racketeering trial, revealing that she paid the hip-hop mogul US$20,000 after he threatened to release explicit sex tapes of her daughter.
Combs became angry that Cassie was dating someone else, her mother, Regina Ventura, testified at the trial on May 20.
Regina said that she felt “physically sick” when she received an email from her daughter in late 2011 saying that Combs was planning to release two explicit videos of her and send someone to hurt her and rapper Kid Cudi, the man Cassie was seeing, whose full name is Scott Mescudi.
Day 7
Regina was on the stand for about 15 minutes and answered the prosecutor’s questions about her daughter’s relationship with Combs.
She said that her daughter had sent her an email before Christmas in 2011 to let her know that Combs was threatening to release sex tapes.
“I did not understand a lot of it. The sex tapes threw me,” Regina told the Manhattan federal court.
Regina said she then received a demand from Combs for $20,000 “to recoup money he had spent on her because he was unhappy she was in a relationship with Kid Cudi.”
“He was angry that he had spent money on her and she went with another person,” she said.
Regina testified that she had to use a home equity loan to make the payment to Combs and wired it to an account associated with Bad Boy, Combs’ company.
“I was scared for my daughter’s safety,” she added.
Days later, she said, the money was returned, and Cassie and Combs began dating again shortly after.
During her testimony, the jury was shown four photographs of Cassie with bruises on her body, including on her thigh and upper back. Regina said she took the pictures of her daughter on Christmas Eve 2011 when she first told her that Combs had beaten her.
Combs’ lawyer Marc Agnifilo declined to cross-examine Regina. As she left the witness stand, she stared straight at Combs, who looked directly ahead.
Before the jury arrived on Tuesday, Agnifilo tried to persuade Judge Arun Subramanian to disallow the testimony, saying it was “purely prejudicial” because it illustrated the wide difference between the financial status of the Ventura family and Combs. The judge allowed it, saying the threats to release sex tapes and harm Cassie made it an instance of “potential extortion.”
Combs’ personal assistant felt his ‘life was in danger’
Earlier Tuesday, David James, Combs’ personal assistant from 2007 to 2009, told the court that he quit when he realized that his life had been put in danger after he was forced to drive a car in which Combs sat in the back seat with three handguns on his lap.
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James said his job sometimes required him to ensure that hotel rooms where Combs stayed under the name “Frank Black” were stocked with the rapper’s comforts, including fresh underwear, an iPod, applesauce, vodka, baby oil, Viagra and condoms.
He told the jurors that Combs didn’t travel light and his Louis Vuitton regularly carried $10,000 in cash “and sometimes much more.”
James recalled a time in 2008 when Combs asked him to bring an iPod from his Miami home to a hotel room. Upon entering, James said he saw Cassie on the bed with a white comforter pulled up to her neck and an unfamiliar naked man with long hair walking across the room.
He said that he never spoke to Cassie or Combs about what he saw and that he never had conversations with them about their personal affairs.
Another time, he said Combs summoned him to his office to show him a video he had recorded at a party of James dancing wildly and told him: “OK. I’m going to keep this footage in case I ever need it.”
James admitted that he was high on ecstasy at a New Year’s Eve party in the video and he took it as a threat to keep him in line.
“He thought it would be embarrassing for me,” James added.
James also described being required to take lie detector tests twice when Combs was trying to find out who stole cash in one instance, and a watch in another.
“It was very intimidating,” James said. “I had never taken a lie detector test before.”
He said Combs was on drugs nearly every day, often taking Percocet by day and ecstasy by night. When he stocked Combs’ hotel rooms, he said, drugs were in a bag dropped off by security, including the pill meant to look like then-president Barack Obama.
The moment when James saw the three guns on Combs’ lap — he testified that he was involved in Combs’ attempt to confront his music industry rival Suge Knight at a Los Angeles diner in November 2008 — he knew he had to quit, which he did shortly thereafter. (Cassie also testified about the diner incident earlier in the trial.)
“I was real shook up by it,” James testified. “This was the first time being Mr. Combs’ assistant that I realized my life was in danger. I told them I want to leave but give six months’ notice so I could train the next assistant.”
Taking over the cross-examination, Agnifilo asked James why he didn’t provide more details on the incident with Knight.
James said that he was instructed “not to say anything that would incriminate himself.”
He testified that Combs’ security detail often included a second car when he was travelling. James said Combs’ team was “suspicious” of anyone “pulling up on him to shoot him.”
James said that people would try to ask Combs for his autograph in public, which he wouldn’t sign. He said staff would sign the items and send them out on Combs’ behalf.
“I don’t think ‘gracious’ is a word I would use to describe him,” James said.
More testimony about freak-offs
Before Tuesday’s lunch break, Sharay Hayes, an exotic dancer known as “The Punisher,” testified that Combs and Cassie brought him into the freak-offs world. He said a woman — Cassie using the pseudonym of “Janet” — called and told him it was her birthday and that her husband said she should hire a dancer.
Hayes, 51, said he arrived at a Manhattan hotel room expecting to perform a striptease for a small group of people but instead found the woman who hired him — whom he later found out was Cassie — alone with an otherwise naked man who hid his face with a burqa-like cloth. That man, he said, turned out to be Combs.
Hayes recalled seeing bottles of baby oil in bowls of water and getting handed a stack of $800 in cash. Later, after Combs watched him have a sexual encounter with Cassie, he said he was handed an additional $1,200. He said he was a fan of Combs but didn’t realize it was him in the room until a subsequent encounter at another hotel where the message on the TV screen said: “Essex House would like to welcome Mr. Sean Combs.”
Hayes said that Cassie told him not to acknowledge Combs, to try not to look at him or communicate with him during the encounter.
He testified that in a dozen or more sexual performances with the couple, Hayes never had the sense that Cassie was uncomfortable with it, adding that he believed it seemed consensual.
Prosecutor Meredith Foster asked Hayes whether Cassie’s focus was on him or Combs.
Hayes said that there was a consistent awareness of Combs and his perception.
A federal agent describes a raid of Combs’ home
Jurors also saw parts of two AR-15 rifles that federal agents found last year while searching Combs’ mansion on Star Island, a celebrity enclave off of Miami.
Special agent Gerard Gannon, of Homeland Security Investigations, testified that agents executing a search warrant for the property in March 2024 used an armoured vehicle to bust through Combs’ security gate and had teams on boats nearby.
In addition to weapons, he said they found platform high heels and items that prosecutors say Combs frequently used during his freak-off sex marathons, including lingerie, sex toys, baby oil, lubricant and condoms.
What Combs is on trial for
U.S. prosecutors allege that for 20 years, behind the scenes, Combs was coercing and abusing women with help from a network of associates who helped silence victims through blackmail and violence.
Combs faces an indictment that includes descriptions of freak-offs, which are defined in the court doc as “elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded.”
Numerous witnesses have come forward to accuse Combs of terrorizing people into silence by choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, according to prosecutors. One indictment alleges that Combs dangled someone from a balcony.
Although dozens of men and women have alleged in lawsuits that Combs abused them, this trial will highlight the claims of four women.
Combs is charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied all the charges against him and has rejected a plea deal, choosing to go to trial instead.
If found guilty in the New York court, he could face life in prison.
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Day 6 testimony
Day 5 testimony
Day 4 testimony
Day 3 testimony
Day 2 testimony
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Global News will be covering the Diddy trial in its entirety. Please check back for updates.
— With files from The Associated Press
