NOTE: The following article contains disturbing details and video footage. Please read at your own discretion.
Grammy-winning rapper Kid Cudi was expected to testify at the Sean “Diddy” Combs sex trafficking and racketeering trial on Wednesday to tell the jury about his brief relationship 14 years ago with Combs’ ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura.
Prosecutors corrected this expectation, saying the 41-year-old artist, whose full name is Scott Mescudi, won’t begin his direct examination until May 22 at the earliest.
Meanwhile, special agent Gerard Gannon of Homeland Security Investigations was back on the witness stand for a second day on Wednesday, discussing what investigators found when they raided Combs’ home near Miami in March 2024, six months before his arrest last September.
Gannon told the court on May 20 that the agents executing a search warrant for the property 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.
Jurors also saw parts of two AR-15 rifles that federal agents found last year while searching Combs’ mansion on Star Island.
Day 8
Gannon was questioned about items seized from one of the closets during the raid of Combs’ home last year. He said he seized a pair of red pump high heels and discovered cellphones stuffed inside a Balenciaga boot.
He also testified that there was a Gucci bag inside the closet that contained white residue that tested positive for cocaine and ketamine. Gannon said the bag also contained smaller bags of different coloured pills, including some stamped with a Tesla symbol that tested positive for MDMA and Xanax.
Gannon said that investigators also found a plastic bag of pills that tested positive for the main ingredient of hallucinogenic mushrooms. He said they were discovered in a wooden box marked, “Puffy.”
Authorities also found a bin containing 25 bottles of baby oil, 31 bottles of Astroglide lubricant and rubber ducks in a closet in the hallway between Combs’ bedroom and closet in his Miami home. A photo of that closet and the items found were shown to the jurors.
Gannon said that a .45-calibre handgun was found in a red suitcase at the entrance of Combs’ guest house on the Miami property.
Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos described the search as overkill.
“So, HSI determined it would come in by land and by sea to secure the property?” Geragos asked. Gannon said Homeland Security Investigations waited to search the property until Combs was on a flight out of town with his family.
The agent confirmed that the federal investigation began just after Ventura filed a lawsuit against Combs, alleging years of abuse and involvement in hundreds of freak-off performances with male escorts, which Combs watched and sometimes participated in.
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Combs’ legal team suggested that the number of guns found in his Miami home were not as significant or as dangerous as they appear.
Gannon agreed that many of the firearms, including some with serial numbers removed, were wrapped up in tape, not loaded and inoperable. He also agreed with Geragos that guns without serial numbers could still be linked to owners by fingerprints and other DNA.
Forensic psychologist says domestic violence victims often stay with their abusers
Once Gannon wrapped up his testimony, prosecutors called Dawn Hughes, a clinical and forensic psychologist, to the stand.
Hughes has taken the witness stand in other high-profile sexual misconduct trials including the NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere’s trial in 2019, R. Kelly’s federal trial and the Johnny Depp–Amber Heard defamation trial.
Hughes said she was testifying as a “blind expert” to provide the jury with some information about domestic violence, sexual assault, rape and traumatic stress. She added that she has not assessed any of the victims or witnesses in the case.
She testified that she is being paid $600 an hour for her work and $6,000 for a day of testimony in court.
Hughes said that it’s common for victims of domestic violence to stay with their abusers. She explained that abusers often use methods, beyond physical violence, to make victims feel trapped in the relationship.
“It’s about the power and control that the abuser has over the victim,” Hughes said.
Hughes said that sexual abuse is “a very private harm,” which can make it difficult for victims to speak up about what they are experiencing and to seek help.
“They experience a tremendous amount of shame, humiliation, degradation,” Hughes said. “They don’t want to talk about it. They don’t even want to think about it in their own brain.”
The psychologist also testified that a victim’s financial dependence on an abuser can play a big role in their decision to stay in an abusive relationship.
“If you don’t have money, you are left with a feeling of ‘Where am I going to go?’ How are you to leave if you don’t have access to those tangible resources?” Hughes said.
She also spoke about “trauma bonds,” which she describes as when somebody is attached to their partner despite violence and abuse, making a victim unwilling to leave the situation.
Hughes said that abusive relationships can also have love and kindness, in addition to the abuse pattern.
“The victim wants that, they want that back. So when that is shown to the victim, that’s very reinforcing,” Hughes said.
Hughes said that it often takes multiple attempts for victims to leave an abusive relationship. “There’s this pattern of returning and reconciliation, and then returning again,” she told the court.
She said victims could want to come back to “the good version of their partner that they still do love.”
Hughes said that it’s common for abuse victims to use substances to “numb” themselves by taking drugs or drinking alcohol before seeing their partner to “ward off other physical or psychological pain to come.”
She said that it’s very uncommon for victims of abuse to discuss it with others around the time it occurs.
“Many victims will wait months, even years, before telling about what happened to them,” Hughes testified.
“They don’t want to label themselves … a victim. They don’t want to label their abuser as abuser,” Hughes said. “It’s too painful to admit that fact that, ‘Somebody who loved me did this to me.’ They’re still in self-blame.”
Why is Kid Cudi expected to testify?
Scott Mescudi is expected to take the witness stand later this week to tell the jury about his relationship with Ventura.
Prosecutors say Combs was so upset about the relationship that he arranged to have Mescudi’s convertible firebombed, according to court filings.
Ventura testified last week that Combs arranged for her to meet Mescudi several times in 2011 to work on music. She said her relationship with him began late in the year and she got a burner phone so the two could communicate without Combs learning about it.
She said Combs became enraged when she left him, and he kicked her in the back hard enough to leave a bruise as she was exiting his Los Angeles home for the last time that year.
Ventura said that although she and Combs broke up, they still engaged in so-called freak-offs. It was during one of those episodes that Combs picked up her regular phone and noticed communications that revealed Ventura was seeing Mescudi, Ventura said.
On Tuesday, Ventura’s mother, Regina Ventura, testified that she received an email in December 2011 from her daughter saying that Combs was so angry about her relationship with Mescudi that he planned to release sexually explicit videos of her and send someone to hurt the pair.
Afterward, Regina said, she received a demand from Combs for $20,000. Scared for her daughter’s safety, she went to the bank and sent Combs the money, only to have it returned by Combs days later.
“He was angry that he had spent money on her and she went with another person,” she said.
Ventura testified that Mescudi came to visit her at her mother’s Connecticut home around Christmas in 2011 and stayed for three or four days. She said she broke up with him.
“It was just too much,” she said. “Too much danger, too much uncertainty of, like, what could happen if we continued to see each other.”
Ventura said she told her family she was going to Los Angeles after the holidays to “get to work.” But instead, she said, she travelled to meet Combs in Arizona, where he had gone to visit a college with his son. They resumed their relationship.
When Ventura and Combs were out of the country, Combs told her that Mescudi’s car would be blown up and Combs wanted Mescudi’s friends there to see it, Ventura said.
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 7 testimony
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
