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Reporting from New York City
The court is now looking at text messages and photos shortly after the hotel attack took place.
Cassie Ventura said she had to attend the premiere of her movie “The Perfect Match” with bruises on her face and body.
She said she thought at the time Combs was “sick” to think that it was OK to do that to her and wanted him to stay away.
The court was also shown a photo of Ventura and Combs smiling at the premiere. She said she had to change her outfit to cover up bruises on her legs and needed to apply a lot of makeup to cover her black eye and fat lip.
Reporting from New York City
Combs pounded on Cassie Ventura’s apartment door, demanding to see his then-girlfriend after assaulting her at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016, the witness said.
Ventura still isn’t sure how Combs got to the 17th floor of her Westwood apartment building, calling the scene “chaos outside the door, banging, kicking, yelling and banging.”
He didn’t get inside.
Reporting from New York City
Cassie Ventura described how Combs lost control during a 2016 meltdown in a Los Angeles hotel hallway, hurling a vase that just missed her.
“I don’t remember exactly his words,” she told the court. “I’m sure he was calling me something other than my name.”
Security was eventually called, but Combs allegedly made himself clear that Ventura wasn’t free to leave on her own accord.
The defendant told Ventura “that I wasn’t going to leave him, that I couldn’t,” according to Ventura.
Reporting from New York City
Before Cassie Ventura retook the witness stand, prosecutors and defense lawyers clashed over how much notice each side deserves about upcoming trial strategy.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey was noticeably angry as she lashed out at the defense for allegedly not turning over exhibits it was planning to use to question Ventura: “We don’t want a trial by ambush.”
But defense attorney Marc Agnifilo insisted his side doesn’t need to tip its hand about how it will cross-examine prosecution witnesses: “They have the burden of proof. We don’t have to give the government what we are going to use so they can prepare their witness.”
U.S. District Court Judge Arun Subramanian denied the government’s request that the defense turn over what it expects to use for Ventura’s cross.
Reporting from New York City
Combs, Cassie Ventura and the jury have entered the courtroom to begin today’s proceedings.
Combs is wearing a grey sweater over a white shirt.
Cassie is wearing a light gray dress with a jacket with wide lapels. For the second day in a row, she walks into the courtroom without looking toward Combs at the defense table.
Cassie will return to the witness stand today, where prosecutors are expected to resume questioning her on the 2016 assault viewed on hotel surveillance cameras.
Combs’ former girlfriend was mostly composed during hours of testimony yesterday, despite breaking down in tears at one point while discussing the emotional toll of trying to keep Combs happy and avoid his temper.
Cassie, now married to someone else, is visibly pregnant and took several steadying breaths while answering uncomfortable questions all day. She described how Combs’ constant demand for “freak-offs,” or drug-fueled sexual encounters, left her feeling “worthless.”
“I didn’t want him to be upset or not trust me,” she told the court. “He was a scary person, he would be violent.”
The R&B singer Cassie gave uncomfortable testimony yesterday during the sex trafficking trial of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, detailing allegations of physical abuse and control that included dayslong, drug-fueled sexual encounters with male escorts under his direction.
“I felt pretty horrible about myself. I felt disgusting. I felt humiliated,” Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, said in a federal courtroom in Lower Manhattan, describing how at times Combs’ “eyes would go black. The version I knew of him was no longer there.”
Ventura, the star prosecutorial witness whose 2023 lawsuit against Combs became a framework for the government’s sprawling case against him, took the stand for several hours on the trial’s second day. Wearing a modest long-sleeved brown dress accentuating her pregnant belly, Ventura, 38, remained mostly calm and soft-spoken.
Read the full story here.
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Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial live updates: Cassie Ventura's testimony continues in sex-trafficking case – NBC News
