NOTE: The following article contains disturbing details and video footage. Please read at your own discretion.
Singer Dawn Richard told jurors at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking trial on Monday that the hip-hop mogul threatened to kill her if she told anyone she saw him physically abusing his longtime girlfriend.
Richard testified that Combs made the threat the day after she witnessed the Bad Boy Records founder punch and kick Casandra “Cassie” Ventura after taking a swing at her with a skillet. Richard said he told her and another woman who saw the attack that “we could go missing” if they didn’t stay quiet.
Combs’ lawyers have acknowledged the rapper could be violent but maintain that the sexual acts were consensual. They say nothing he did amounted to sex trafficking or racketeering (the charges he faces), insisting he just has unique sexual proclivities.
Day 6
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitzi Steiner asked Richard what she took “we could go missing” to mean.
“That we could die,” Richard responded, saying she was shocked because all of this happened just as she was beginning to record with Diddy — Dirty Money, a musical trio with Combs and another R&B singer.
Richard disclosed the alleged threat as she returned to the witness stand to kick off the second week of testimony in Combs’ sex trafficking and racketeering trial in Manhattan federal court.
Combs, 55, is accused of exploiting his entertainment powerbroker status to abuse women, including Ventura, through threats and violence for two decades from 2004 until his arrest last September. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers argue that prosecutors compiled proof of domestic violence, but not the federal crimes he’s charged with.
Richard, who began her testimony on May 16 and May 19, said she witnessed Combs attack Ventura multiple times, including during a visit to Combs’ home recording studio in 2009, when Richard said she and another woman saw Combs hit Ventura “on the head and beat her on the ground” after Ventura deflected a swipe at her head by a skillet.
Richard said she witnessed Combs beat his girlfriend frequently – he “would punch her, choke her, drag her, slap her in the mouth. I saw him kick her, punch her in the stomach.”
Beatings came when Ventura spoke up for herself, “if she had an opinion about something,” said Richard, who also performed in the group Danity Kane.
She said Combs’ staff, including his bodyguards, also witnessed violence but they “wouldn’t react. They wouldn’t do anything.”
Richard supported Ventura’s testimony that Combs had stifled Ventura’s fledgling singing career, saying she heard Combs tell Ventura that he “owned her” and that any success she had would be on his terms.
Richard said Combs would get mad — sometimes violent — when she and other artists offered to help Ventura write songs.
Defence lawyer Nicole Westmoreland suggested Richard was testifying because she was angry at Combs for ending Danity Kane and Diddy — Dirty Money, and because she has a pending lawsuit against him.
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“You felt that Mr. Combs ruined your career not once, but twice?” Westmoreland asked.
“Yes,” Richard answered.
She contended, though, that she was sad, not angry, over the end of the groups, and is suing Combs because he mistreated her and withheld her earnings.
Bad Boy signed Ventura to a 10-album deal in 2006, but only released one — the self-titled Cassie, which came out the same year. Ventura and Combs started dating in 2007 and broke up for good in 2018.
Ventura’s former best friend recalls violent outbursts
Before day’s end, Ventura’s best friend of 17 years and a former personal assistant to Combs testified that she felt trapped as prosecutors tried to uncover proof that Combs was operating a criminal racketeering organization that relied on employees to help him control Ventura and other women in his life.
Testimony about Combs’ beatings of Ventura came with hardly a mention of the drug-fuelled “freak-offs” that dominated testimony last week, when Ventura explained over four days how her wish for a loving relationship with Combs led instead to her weekly sexual performances with male sex workers that left her too exhausted to pursue her musical career.
After Richard came testimony from Kerry Morgan. She said she was Ventura’s longtime best friend until they had a falling out after Morgan suffered a concussion when Combs’ choked Morgan and slung a wooden hanger at her in 2018 when he came to Ventura’s Los Angeles home enraged that Cassie was dating someone else.
Morgan said she was going to sue Combs, but Ventura met her at a pizza parlour and had her sign a nondisclosure agreement in return for US$30,000 from Combs while accusing her of “milking” and “overexaggerating” the attack. Morgan and Ventura both testified that they haven’t spoken since.
Morgan, a reluctant witness who acknowledged that she only testified in response to a government subpoena, said she saw Combs beat Ventura at least twice, including once so severely on a trip to Jamaica, when Combs became angry that Ventura was taking too long in the bathroom, that she thought her friend had been “knocked out.”
She said she encouraged Ventura to break up with him after realizing that the very confident woman she had met in 2001 during modeling gigs and who roomed with her for a time had “lost her spark” and had assumed a slumped posture as she catered to Combs’ needs. But she said Ventura was reluctant to leave Combs.
“He controlled everything. She would’ve lost all of her livelihood,” Morgan said, noting that Combs paid for Ventura’s car and apartment, and had her under contract with Bad Boy.
Ventura testified last week that although she continued to go to the recording studio and work on songs, Combs refused to release them.
“He was in charge of her career,” Morgan testified, adding that Ventura sometimes expressed frustration that her music wasn’t being released.
Ex-employee says Combs called Ventura ‘very moldable’
David James, who served as Combs’ personal assistant from 2007 to 2009, started crying as he testified that, when he interviewed for the job, one of the hip-hop heavyweight’s lieutenants pointed to a photo of Combs on the wall and told him: “This is Mr. Combs’ kingdom. We’re all here to serve him.”
James’ employment coincided with the early days of Combs and Ventura’s relationship. He recalled her being astonished — and perhaps overwhelmed — by Combs’ high-flying, globetrotting ways.
“Man, this lifestyle is crazy,” he recalled Ventura saying as they smoked cigarettes on a dock with her then-best friend Morgan.
James, who will return to the stand Tuesday, said he suggested Ventura leave Combs if she was uncomfortable, to which he said she replied: “I can’t. I can’t get out. You know, Mr. Combs oversees so much of my life.”
James recalled talking to Combs on another occasion about the women in his life. Combs, he said, described his longtime girlfriend Kim Porter, the mother of some of his children, as “my queen.”
When the subject turned to Ventura, James testified that Combs told him: “She’s good. I got her right where I want her. She’s young.”
James recalled Combs describing Ventura as “very moldable.”
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 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
