Sean Combs’s Trial
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Casandra Ventura’s mother said she tried to pay the mogul to ensure her daughter’s safety, and an escort known as Punisher described engaging in up to a dozen “freak-offs.”
Ben Sisario and Julia Jacobs
The mother of Casandra Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, testified on Tuesday in Sean Combs’s sex-trafficking and racketeering trial, saying that she took pictures of her daughter’s bruises and paid Mr. Combs money after he became angry about her daughter seeing another man.
Appearing in a shawl and turtleneck, her dark gray hair topped with silver, Regina Ventura was on the stand for only about 15 minutes, speaking with a steady voice as she detailed how shortly before Christmas 2011, Cassie informed her that Mr. Combs was threatening to release two explicit sex tapes of her.
“I was physically sick,” Regina Ventura testified.
Ms. Ventura spoke on the seventh day of Mr. Combs’s trial. Her daughter testified four days last week, providing graphic testimony about the violence and degrading sex she said she endured throughout most of the couple’s nearly 11-year relationship. The jury will have to decide if Mr. Combs was simply violent, or if his actions, as the prosecutors say, amounted to sex trafficking. Prosecutors have worked to establish that Mr. Combs had coercive power over Cassie, in part because she loved him, but also because he held the reins on her career and physically beat her.
The jury saw four photographs of Cassie that showed bruises on her backside, thigh and upper back. Regina Ventura said she took them on Christmas Eve that year, when Cassie first told her that Mr. Combs had beaten her.
Around the same time, Regina Ventura testified, 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,” she said, “and she had been with another person.” (Cassie was involved in a relationship with Scott Mescudi, the rapper known as Kid Cudi, who is scheduled to testify this week.)
Regina Ventura said she was scared for her daughter’s safety, so she and her husband used a home-equity loan to wire money to an account associated with Bad Boy, Mr. Combs’s company.
The money was returned to them four or five days later, Regina Ventura said, and she never had any contact with Mr. Combs about it.
Lawyers for Mr. Combs said they had no questions for Regina Ventura, and when she left the stand, she stared straight at Mr. Combs. He looked directly ahead, never making eye contact with her.
Mr. Combs has acknowledged being violent to Cassie, but he has denied the sex trafficking and other accusations of criminal conduct that have been lodged against him. His lawyers say Mr. Combs engaged in perhaps unconventional marathon sex sessions with Cassie, but that they were fully consensual; Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Mr. Combs wore a blue-gray sweater on Tuesday. His mother and six adult children, who were all present in the courtroom at times last week, have not been in the spectators’s gallery this week so far. His sister, Keisha Combs, has been in court this week.
Earlier in the day, a former personal assistant to Mr. Combs testified about his boss’s daily drug use, as well as fearing for his life when Mr. Combs, armed, told him to accompany him to a possible confrontation with a rival rap executive.
David James, the assistant, explained some of the routine work he did for Mr. Combs, like keeping schedules and catering to his boss’s preferences for ketchup and apple sauce. He also described how security personnel for Mr. Combs carried a Louis Vuitton bag at all times that was filled with pills and cash. One type of Ecstasy pill, he said, was shaped like President Obama’s face.
Mr. James described a workplace in which he was closely scrutinized, sometimes to the point of feeling intimidated. Twice, he said, he was asked to take a lie-detector test to prove he was not responsible for missing cash or a missing watch.
He testified about an incident one night in January 2009 at Mr. Combs’s home in Los Angeles, where Mr. James was researching possible tattoos for him on a computer. Mr. Combs, visibly upset, burst into the room, complaining about a blog post that reported that he had beaten Cassie. The mogul demanded to see the browsing history on the computer Mr. James was using.
Later, Mr. James said, he was instructed to deliver fried chicken to Cassie at the London Hotel in Los Angeles, where Cassie testified last week she had been taken to heal after being beaten by Mr. Combs.
Mr. James also described a time in Miami, around 2008, when Mr. Combs ordered Mr. James to deliver an iPod to a hotel room. There he saw Cassie, motionless on a bed, as well as an unknown man, naked and wearing a condom, who “scurried off as if he didn’t want to be seen.” Mr. James said he did not see Mr. Combs but could hear a shower running.
Mr. James also spoke about going with a member of Mr. Combs’s security staff to a Los Angeles diner in 2008, where they saw Suge Knight of Death Row Records, a longtime rival of Mr. Combs. Back at Mr. Combs’s house, the mogul ordered Mr. James and the security officer to return with him; Mr. Combs, in the back seat, had three guns in his lap, Mr. James said.
“This was the first time, being Mr. Combs’s assistant, that I realized my life was in danger,” Mr. James testified.
Under cross-examination by Marc Agnifilo, one of Mr. Combs’s lawyers, Mr. James was asked why he did not raise any objection to traveling to a possible gunfight. “I was doing what I was told,” he testified. He said he then gave his six-month notice to Bad Boy.
Mr. Agnifilo asked Mr. James whether he had received any legal protections from the government as a witness in the case. Mr. James said he received a proffer agreement — which allows a witness to provide information with some protections from prosecution — but he could not speak to the details.
As Mr. James stepped down from the stand, he and Mr. Combs briefly nodded at each other.
Sharay Hayes testified in the afternoon that from 2012 to 2015, working under the name Punisher, he was hired for eight to 12 “freak-offs,” the sexual encounters at the heart of the case, and was paid up to $2,000 at a time. Mr. Hayes said that when Ms. Ventura first hired him, she initially told him that he was to dance for her birthday, and Mr. Combs later entered the room in a veillike mask that obscured his face. But they eventually engaged in sex, he said, with Mr. Combs frequently directing them.
Last week, another escort, Daniel Phillip, testified that he became concerned for Ms. Ventura’s safety after seeing Mr. Combs throw a liquor bottle in her direction and overhearing him slap her until she cried in another room.
But Mr. Hayes said he did not perceive any discomfort on Ms. Ventura’s part. “It seemed like it was consented as far as I was concerned,” he said.
At times, Mr. Hayes said, Ms. Ventura seemed to express some exasperation at Mr. Combs’s instructions. “I did observe sometimes a sigh, a wince,” he said, “that appeared to be frustration with the frequency of the directions.”
Gerard Gannon, an agent with Homeland Security Investigations, later testified about the government’s 2024 raid on Mr. Combs’s luxury estate in Miami Beach, Fla. Eighty to 90 law enforcement officers were involved, because of the property’s vast size and an armored vehicle was used to break through the property’s gate. Inside, agents found two disassembled AR-15-style weapons with their serial numbers defaced.
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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Cassie’s Mother Testifies at Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Trial About Bruises and a Payment – The New York Times
