Takeaways so far Cassie Ventura's 2nd day of cross-examination in Sean ‘Diddy' Combs trial

CNN

16-05-2025

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The cross-examination of Cassie Ventura continued midday Friday as her time on the stand moved toward its end in Sean 'Diddy' Combs' racketeering and sex-trafficking trial.
Ventura, Combs' former longtime girlfriend, who is the star witness in the case and is testifying for the fourth straight day Combs physically and sexually abused her and used violence and blackmail to make her participate in drug-fueled sex parties known as 'Freak Offs' over more than a decade.
Under cross-examination, defense attorneys have asked about her own explicit messages with Combs about the 'Freak Offs,' whether Combs' staffers knew about the liaisons, and the role of jealousy and drugs in their relationship.
The defense has acknowledged Combs has been violent with romantic partners and has a 'different' sex life. However, they have argued the women consented to these sexual arrangements and have attempted to portray Combs as a jealous man with a drug problem as opposed to the head of a criminal enterprise.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He could face up to life in prison.
Judge Arun Subramanian has announced plans to have Ventura's testimony fully finished before the weekend. Ventura is pregnant with her third child due next month, and prosecutors have expressed concern she could have the baby as soon as this weekend.
Here's what we learned in her testimony Friday.
Ventura testified that she saw Combs voluntarily at a friend's birthday a month after she says he raped her in August 2018. She said she still had feelings for him then and did not hate him at the time – or even now.
'I don't hate him,' Ventura testified.
'Do you still have love for him?' defense attorney Anna Estevao asked.
'I have love for the past and what it was,' Ventura said.
To begin Friday, Estevao picked back up where she left off Thursday in questioning Ventura about the March 5, 2016, incident at a Los Angeles hotel in which Combs grabbed, kicked and dragged Ventura in an elevator lobby.
Estevao asked Ventura if she told investigators in previous interviews that Combs was 'black out' during the incident. 'I believe he was intoxicated,' she testified, adding that everyone's perception of a 'black out' is different.
The jury saw a message Ventura sent Combs five days after the assault describing the abuse and his state of mind.
'When you get f**ked up the wrong way you always want to show me that you have the power, and you knock me around. I'm not a rag doll, I'm someone's child,' she wrote in the message read aloud in court.
Surveillance video of that assault has been the central evidence in this trial so far. CNN first published video of the incident last year.
Ventura testified earlier this week that the hotel assault came after she tried to leave a 'Freak Off' before it was 'over.' Afterward, she had a 'black eye and a fat lip' and spoke to the police about the incident but 'wasn't ready' to name Combs, according to her testimony.
The jury heard a recording Ventura captured of a conversation she had with a man in Atlantic City in March 2014 after the man said he'd seen a sexually explicit video of her.
In the recording, she threatened the man multiple times.
'I will cut you up and put you in the f**king dirt right now if you have it,' she said. 'I'm going to kill you and then he's gonna kill you again.'
'I'm going to f**k you up, and it's not going to be my hands and it's not going to be blood on my hands. Someone else is going to do it,' she said in the recording.
Ventura has previously told the jury that Combs pushed her to get to the bottom of the situation. Whether there actually was an explicit video of her or how the situation was resolved was not established in Ventura's testimony.
Ventura also testified that she believed a man had secretly taken a video of her and Combs at a 'Freak Off.' She was concerned about it and told Combs, who responded that he'd 'take care of it,' she testified.
Ventura and Combs dated on and off from 2007 to 2018, and Ventura offered her view on the end of the relationship.
After the death of Kim Porter, the late model and actress who shared three children with Combs, Combs posted on social media that he and Porter were 'more than soulmates.' Around the time of her memorial service, Ventura texted Combs that it hurt her feelings.
'Then you posted that Kim was your soulmate, What was the 11 years all about,' she wrote.
Porter's memorial service was the last time Ventura and Combs saw each other in person. 'He let you go?' Estevao asked her to confirm.
'I never saw him again. I don't know about letting me go,' she testified.
Combs has tried to get in touch with her over the years since then, including through other people, Ventura said.