Singer Cassie set to testify in Sean ‘Diddy' Combs sex trafficking trial. Follow live updates.

Boston Globe

13-05-2025

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What to know about the trial so far:
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The charges against Diddy:
Combs has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
The witnesses and the evidence:
The prosecution on Monday showed the jury security video of Combs beating and kicking Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. The trial's first witness, Israel Florez, who was working hotel security at the time, testified about responding to a report of a woman in distress and witnessing Combs tell Cassie: 'You're not going to leave.' Florez said he told Combs, 'If she wants to leave, she's going to leave.'
The members of the jury:
Twelve jurors — eight men and four women — and six alternates were chosen just before opening statements began Monday. They include a massage therapist, an investment analyst and a deli clerk. The jurors' identities are known to the court and the prosecution and defense sides, but won't be made public.
Who is Cassie? — 9:44 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
Cassie, a key prosecution witness expected to testify Tuesday, met Combs in 2005 when she was 19 and he was 37. He signed her to his Bad Boy Records label and, within a few years, they started dating.
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In her 2023 lawsuit, Cassie alleges Combs trapped her in a 'cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking' for more than a decade, including raping her and forcing her to engage in sex acts with male sex workers. Combs settled the lawsuit the next day.
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Among other things, Cassie alleges Combs raped her when she tried to leave him and often punched, kicked and beat her, causing injuries including bruises, burst lips, black eyes and bleeding. She also alleges that Combs was involved in blowing up rival rapper Kid Cudi's car when he learned Cudi was romantically interested in her, and she alleges that Combs ran out of his home with guns when he learned Suge Knight, a rival producer, was eating at a nearby diner.
Model Cassie Ventura (L) and Sean "Diddy" Combs pose ringside At "Mayweather VS Pacquiao" presented by SHOWTIME PPV And HBO PPV at MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 2, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Getty Images for SHOWTIME
On the media's request to view sexually explicit material in the trial — 9:40 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
Judge Arun Subramanian says he's inclined to grant a request by media organizations to view what a defense lawyer described as pornographic videos that will be shown to the jury as evidence in the case.
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But he's giving the parties another day to make submissions on the matter. The judge says he needs to balance privacy issues of the witnesses and defendant with the rights of the public to know what's happening during the trial.
The judge has taken the bench — 9:25 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
And almost immediately, the question came up of how to handle the media request to view sexually explicit exhibits.
Combs' appearance in court — 9:25 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
Since his September arrest, Combs has been held at a federal jail in Brooklyn.
Judge Arun Subramanian has granted Combs permission to wear regular clothes in court, instead of jail garb.
He is allowed up to five button-down shirts, five pairs of pants, five sweaters, five pairs of socks and two pairs of shoes without laces.
On Monday, he sported a gray sweater and a white button-down shirt. Because hair dye isn't allowed in jail, his normally jet black mane is now mostly gray.
Under federal court rules, no photos or video of the trial will be allowed. Courtroom sketches are permitted.
Sean Diddy Combs, center, motions a heart sign to his family in attendance as he is escorted out of lock-up by US Marshals, on the first day of trial, Monday, May 12, 2025, in New York.
Elizabeth Williams/Associated Press
Testimony on Tuesday morning — 9:20 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
Testimony will continue with the cross examination of a male stripper who says he was hired by Combs and his girlfriend — R&B singer Cassie — to have sex with Cassie while Combs watched and sometimes directed what should happen.
A defense lawyer said he expects to question the witness, Daniel Phillip, for about an hour.
Combs' family, including his mother and children, have arrived at court — 9:15 a.m.
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Janice Combs (L), mother of Sean Combs, arrives at at Manhattan's Federal Court in New York City on May 13, 2025.
LEONARDO MUNOZ/AFP via Getty Images
Phillip set to retake the stand Tuesday — 9:10 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
Daniel Phillip is set to retake the stand when court reconvenes on Tuesday.
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Phillip told jurors that Combs was coy about his identity when they first met in 2012 at a Manhattan hotel.
The rap star wore a ball cap, obscured his face with a bandana and claimed to be in the importing and exporting industry, Phillip said.
The witness testified that it wasn't until a subsequent encounter at a different hotel when Combs revealed who he was, answering the door in a suit and peacoat.
Judge rejects claim that Combs was treated differently because of his race — 9:01 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
The judge presiding over the racketeering and sex trafficking trial of hip-hop mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs said last week there was no evidence to back up his lawyers' claim he was treated differently because of his race.
Judge Arun Subramanian said Combs had shown no evidence of discriminatory effect or intent based on his race, when his lawyers made their arguments in Manhattan federal court in February. In a separate written opinion, the judge also refused to suppress evidence in the case.
The lawyers had written that the prosecution was unprecedented because, 'most disturbingly, no white person has ever been the target of a remotely similar prosecution.'
The judge agreed with arguments by prosecutors that the extent of criminal conduct by Combs from 2004 to 2024 — when he was alleged to have overseen a racketeering enterprise that enabled him to sexually abuse women — was enough to separate the case against him from other prosecutions.
'It's the severity of what Combs allegedly did — not his race — that mattered,' the judge wrote.
Sean Diddy Combs, left, stands as his defense attorney, Teny Geragos, gives her opening statement to the jury on the first day of trial in Manhattan federal court, Monday, May 12, 2025, in New York.
Elizabeth Williams/Associated Press
Another topic the attorneys and the judge may discuss — 8:47 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
Another possible topic for discussion between attorneys and the judge this morning could arise over an argument by media organizations that some recordings to be shown to the jury involving sexual activity should not be sealed.
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The media outlets include ABC, CBS, NBC, The Associated Press, Business Insider, National Public Radio, Newsday, The New York Times, the New York Post, Reuters, New York Magazine and The Washington Post. The plan was for the jury to view the recordings, but not the public.
The media outlets say a viewing of the recordings is necessary because they could play a 'central role' in determining the guilt or innocence of Combs. Lawyers for him say the sexual activity is a glimpse into the swingers lifestyle and not evidence of crimes.
A lawyer for R&B singer Cassie, who's expected to testify Tuesday, opposed the media request, saying the news organizations cited no legal precedent for unsealing 'videos depicting coercive sex acts.'
The allegations against Combs — 8:25 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
Lawyers for the three-time Grammy winner say prosecutors are wrongly trying to make a crime out of a party-loving lifestyle that may have been indulgent, but not illegal.
Prosecutors say Combs coerced women into drugged-up group sexual encounters he called 'freak-offs,' 'wild king nights' or 'hotel nights,' then kept them in line by choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, often by the hair.
The prosecutor said Combs last year brutally beat another woman — identified only as Jane — when she confronted him about enduring years of freak-offs in dark hotel rooms while he took other paramours on date nights and trips around the globe.
The sex parties are central to Combs' sexual abuse, prosecutors say. Combs' company paid for the parties, held in hotel rooms across the US and overseas, and his employees staged the rooms with his preferred lighting, extra linens and lubricant, Johnson said. Combs compelled women, including Cassie, to take drugs and engage in sexual activity with male escorts while he gratified himself and sometimes recorded them, Johnson said.
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The jury isn't expected in Manhattan federal court this morning until 9:30 a.m. — 8:20 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
But the lawyers are supposed to meet a half hour earlier to resolve any last-minute legal issues in advance of testimony from the government's star witness: R&B singer Cassie.
She's likely to begin testifying by midday. Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, was intertwined with the hip-hop power broker for 11 years. Her lawsuit and allegations of sexual abuse in 2023 ignited the scrutiny that led to federal charges.
Defense conceded Combs had violent outbursts, but say no federal crimes occurred — 8:11 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
The public knew Combs as a larger-than-life music and business mogul, but in private, he used violence and threats to coerce women into drug-fueled sexual encounters that he recorded, a prosecutor said Monday in opening statements at Combs' sex trafficking trial.
'During this trial you are going to hear about 20 years of the defendant's crimes,' Assistant US Attorney Emily Johnson told the jury.
Those crimes, she said, included kidnapping, arson, drugs, sex crimes, bribery and obstruction.
Combs' lawyer Teny Geragos, though, described the closely watched trial as a misguided overreach by prosecutors, saying that although her client could be violent, the government was trying to turn sex between consenting adults into a prostitution and sex trafficking case.
Geragos conceded that Combs' violent outbursts, often fueled by alcohol, jealousy and drugs, might have warranted domestic violence charges, but not sex trafficking and racketeering counts.
Things to know about the trial so far — 7:52 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
Witnesses began testifying this week in the trial for one of the biggest music moguls and cultural figures of the past four decades.
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The trial is expected to last at least eight weeks in all. Here's a look at some of the details:
The witnesses:
The trial's main players
R&B singer Cassie set to testify in Sean 'Diddy' Combs sex trafficking trial — 7:48 a.m.
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By the Associated Press
The R&B singer Cassie could testify as soon as Tuesday in Combs' sex trafficking trial, as the Bad Boy Records founder faces charges that he orchestrated a deviant empire of exploitation that forced women into drugged-up sex parties called 'freak-offs.'
Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, has been at the center of Combs' stunning downfall. She sued him in 2023, alleging years of abuse. A surveillance video made public last year showed Combs beating her at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016. CNN aired the video last year, leading Combs to apologize.
The video, which was played for jurors, shows Combs wearing only a white towel, punching, kicking and dragging Cassie in a hotel hallway.
Israel Florez, a former security officer at the hotel, testified Monday that he came across Combs while responding to a call about a woman in distress, and found Combs sitting in a chair with 'a devilish stare.' Florez said Combs offered him a stack of money and said 'Don't tell nobody.'
Cassie Ventura, left, and Sean "Diddy" Combs appear at the premiere of "Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A Bad Boy Story" on June 21, 2017, in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Chris Pizzello/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP