Sean “Diddy” Combs’ defense team declined to ask a single question of Casandra “Cassie” Ventura’s mother at his sex trafficking and racketeering trial Tuesday after she told a jury about being “physically sick” from his horrifying abuse of her daughter.
In devastating testimony last week, Ventura described being trapped in a cycle of violent abuse, recovery and humiliation during her 11-year relationship with the rap producer. The 39-year-old singer said she was frequently beaten and coerced into hundreds of degrading sexual performances with other men dubbed “freakoffs,” tapes of which the mogul used against her as blackmail.
Cassie’s mother, Regina Ventura, told the jury in Manhattan federal court she was nauseated when she first learned of the freakoffs. Cassie informed her and Combs’ assistant, Capricorn Clark, about them in a 2011 email after Combs heard she was dating the rapper Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, and blew a fuse.
“The threats that have been made towards me by Sean Puffy Combs are that he is going to release two explicit sex tapes of me. One on Christmas Day, maybe before or right after, and another one some time soon after that,” Cassie wrote in an email jurors saw during her testimony last week.
“He has also said that he will be having someone hurt me and Scott Mescudi physically (he made a point that it wouldn’t be by his hands, he actually said he’d be out of the country when it happened).”
Cassie’s mother said it made her “physically sick.”
She said she learned her daughter was being physically abused when Cassie came home to visit Connecticut black and blue, including severe bruising on her lower back, which Ventura insisted on photographing.
Not long after, Ventura said the lavishly wealthy Combs contacted her, saying he needed cash to “recoup” funds he’d spent on her daughter — forcing Cassie’s parents of modest means to take out a home equity loan to wire him $20,000. Saying she was terrified about Cassie’s safety, Ventura said, “That’s the only way we could get the money,” and that Combs, who had “demanded it,” later sent it back.
After less than 20 minutes of testimony from Regina Ventura, Combs’ lawyers politely told the court they had nothing to ask.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Ventura,” defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo said. “I don’t have any questions for you. Thank you.”
Before Cassie’s mom, jurors heard from one of Combs’ former personal assistants of how working for him was a full-time job that involved tending to his every whim — from renting yachts in the south of France or stocking up on Percocet, ketchup, hair dye, drugs and baby oil — from the moment the mogul woke up until he went to sleep.
“Depending upon the personal staff at the time, some days it would be six days a week, seven days a week,” David James, Combs’ assistant from 2007 to 2009, testified in Manhattan Federal Court.
“There were times I worked three weeks straight.”
James took the stand as prosecutors at the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office sought to establish allegations that Combs operated a criminal enterprise for two decades until his high-profile arrest in September last year.
Prosecutors allege the Bad Boy Records co-founder carried out a RICO conspiracy by employing a network of bodyguards and high-ranking employees to assist him in trafficking and transporting young women and male commercial sex workers across state lines to participate in the freakoffs.
The feds say members of Combs’ web of employees went to extreme lengths to cater to the disgraced rapper’s insatiable appetite, whether that meant engaging in kidnapping, arson, drugs, sex crimes, bribery, obstruction and other crimes.
James shed light on Comb’s high-flying and depraved lifestyle and the barriers that stopped the women he abused from escaping it.
Responding to questions from the prosecution about Ventura, James on Monday recalled once asking her why she didn’t “just leave and get out.”
“She was, like, ‘I can’t, I can’t get out. Mr. Combs oversees so much of my life. He controls my music career, he pays for my apartment, he gives me an allowance, essentially a salary,’” James testified.
“I just didn’t think that she could easily leave.”
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, transporting individuals for prostitution, and related counts. If found guilty at the trial, expected to last eight weeks, he could spend the rest of his life in federal prison.
Later Tuesday, jurors heard from a Homeland Security Investigations special agent who testified about magazines loaded with bullets and lower receivers with scratched-out serial numbers recovered from Combs’ Miami Beach property during a March 2024 raid, photos of which were shown to jurors. Special Agent Gerard Gannon also testified about baby oil, Astroglide lubricant, lingerie, and high heels recovered from Combs’ 20,000-square-foot home — clothing Ventura last week said Combs directed she wear in freakoffs.
Following Gannon’s testimony, jurors heard from Sharay Hayes, 51, a male exotic dancer paid thousands by Combs to sleep with Ventura for Combs’ sexual gratification between 2012 and 2016. When she took the stand last week, Cassie told panelists she only knew of Hayes by his stage name, “The Punisher.”
Hayes testified that Combs and Ventura first hired him for what he believed would be a strip tease at the Trump International Hotel in the city.
“I was specifically told to not acknowledge her husband, try not to look at him, no communication or anything,” Hayes testified of the mood during the sessions.
“My understanding was we were creating a scene, a sexy scene, that was enjoyable to [Ventura’s] partner.”
On cross-examination with Combs’ team, Hayes said he never witnessed violence or Combs recording the sordid encounters, during which Combs usually masturbated, and that he didn’t “get any cues that there was discomfort” by Ventura.
The trial continues Wednesday, with the prosecution tentatively set to call Kid Cudi as one of their next witnesses.
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