Latest news with #CassieVentura
CNN
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
New Accusations As Defense Challenges Abuse Claims - Laura Coates Live - Podcast on CNN Audio
New Accusations As Defense Challenges Abuse Claims Laura Coates Live 48 mins 'Mia,' a former assistant to Sean 'Diddy' Combs and friend to Cassie Ventura who is testifying under a pseudonym, is expected to be back on the stand Monday for more cross-examination. She spoke today about the violence and abuse — verbal, physical and sexual — she experienced while employed by the music mogul.
Malay Mail
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Malay Mail
Sean ‘Diddy' Combs' legal team uses Instagram posts to question credibility of witness
NEW YORK, May 31 — The defence for Sean 'Diddy' Combs yesterday used upbeat social media posts to attack the credibility of one of the women accusing the music mogul of sexual assault during his federal trial in New York. 'Isn't it true that Mr Combs never had unwanted nonconsensual forcible contact with you?' lawyer Brian Steel said to a former Bad Boys Records assistant testifying under the pseudonym Mia, during questioning that included displays of her personal social media posts. The testimony came as US President Donald Trump pondered aloud if he would offer 55-year-old Combs a pardon during a press conference at the White House yesterday, saying 'I don't know, I would certainly look at the facts.' The facts are still unfolding in a trial that is expected to last into summer, in a case that revolves around Combs's relationship with his former girlfriend, singer Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura. Earlier in the trial Ventura detailed years of alleged abuse and coercive, drug-fueled sex marathons with male prostitutes known as 'freak-offs.' This week, Mia described how her job between 2009 and 2017 became a nightmare as she worked to protect Ventura from Combs's fits of rage, or care for her after the attacks, tending to 'busted lips,' 'bruises' and 'a black eye.' Combs would tell Mia to 'go take care of her,' adding that 'we were not allowed' to go out until her injuries healed enough to conceal, Mia testified Thursday. She also testified that she personally endured abuses, including rapes, while working for Combs, recounting the painful and traumatic episodes with her head bowed. Instagram vs reality During cross examination yesterday, Steel confronted Mia with her social media posts, where she presented a much more positive image of her relationship with her boss. On a courtroom screen displaying Mia's Instagram posts, she called Combs 'an extraordinary cultural phenomenon' and shared affectionate messages on his birthdays. Steel asked how she could publish such posts about a man she now accuses of sexual assault. 'Of course you post the great times,' Mia said. 'Instagram is a place to show how great your life was even if it's not true.' After Mia read her posts aloud, Steel questioned Mia's allegations, to which she replied twice 'everything I said in this courtroom is true.' 'Ask any abuse victim's advocate and they could explain it to you much better than I could.' On Thursday, Mia testified that Combs subjected her to 'sporadic' instances of sexual violence, including at the artist's 40th birthday party at the Plaza Hotel in New York and his private residence in Los Angeles. 'I just froze, I didn't react, terrified and confused,' Mia said about one of the assaults. 'He was the boss or the king, very powerful person,' she said. 'This is years and years before social media, Me Too, or any sort of example where someone had stood up successfully to someone in power such as him,' she added. At the conclusion of the court's proceedings, jurors will have to determine whether that Grammy-winning artist and producer has used his fame, wealth and influence in hip-hop to support a criminal enterprise and sexual trafficking. — AFP
Free Malaysia Today
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Free Malaysia Today
Second ex-assistant says Diddy sexually assaulted her
Sean Combs's case revolves around his relationship with former girlfriend Casandra Ventura. (EPA Images pic) NEW YORK : A second former assistant to Sean 'Diddy' Combs testified today in the music mogul's federal trial, alleging he committed acts of violence against her and others, including sexual assault. Appearing under the pseudonym Mia to protect her identity, the assistant addressed jurors on the stand in the federal trial of the once-famed rapper, producer and entrepreneur who faces racketeering and sex trafficking charges that could put him in prison for life. Combs's case revolves around his relationship with his former girlfriend, singer Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura, who earlier in the trial detailed years of alleged abuse and coercive, drug-fuelled sex marathons known as 'freak-offs'. 'He's going to kill me' Mia said she was close to the 'Diddy-Cassie' couple and recalled several episodes of violence. She sounded breathless at times as she told the court about seeing Ventura with 'busted lips', 'bruises' and 'a black eye'. Combs would tell Mia to 'go take care of her', referring to Ventura, adding that 'we were not allowed' to go out until her injuries healed enough to conceal. The prosecutors asked Mia about an incident during a holiday trip she took with the couple in 2012. One night, she said she was woken up by Ventura running into her room, 'screaming for help'. She recalled Ventura had said: 'He's gonna kill me,' referring to Combs. 'We started pushing furniture in front of the door,' Mia said, describing how Combs was 'screaming and banging' on the other side. The former assistant, like previous witnesses, said hotel rooms would be prepared for the 'freak-offs' and she would be responsible for the clean-up. Working for the hip-hop mogul could be exciting, she said, but was often degrading. 'He treated me sometimes like his best friend, a working partner, sometimes I was a worthless piece of crap,' Mia said. 'I just froze' She also accused Combs of violent acts against her. 'He has thrown things at me. He has thrown me against the wall. He has thrown me into a pool. He has thrown an ice bucket on my head. He has slammed my arm into a door,' she said. 'He has also sexually assaulted me.' She said Combs subjected her to 'sporadic' instances of sexual violence, including at the artiste's 40th birthday party at the Plaza Hotel in New York and his private residence in Los Angeles. 'I just froze, I didn't react, terrified and confused,' Mia said about one of the assaults. 'He was the boss or the king, very powerful person,' she said. 'This is years and years before social media, Me Too, or any sort of example where someone had stood up successfully to someone in power such as him,' she added. Mia said the rapper held sway over the police, describing how she herself was pulled over one day in LA for speeding. But when she called Combs and handed the phone to the female officer, 'she started laughing and saying like 'Oh my god, Puff Daddy, I love you,'… and then she let me go'. Mia's testimony is scheduled to continue tomorrow.
CNN
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
‘Diddy' trial takeaways: Defense questions ex-employee on why she kept working for Sean Combs despite alleged abuse
People in entertainment Sean 'Diddy' CombsFacebookTweetLink Follow A former employee of Sean 'Diddy' Combs faced sharp questions on cross-examination Friday as the hip-hop mogul's federal racketeering and sex trafficking trial ended its third week of testimony. The employee – testifying under the pseudonym 'Mia' – testified with a stronger tone under cross examination, in contrast to her guarded manner during questioning by prosecutors when she spoke with her head bowed down and her bangs covering her face, at times responding in nearly a whisper. She is expected to resume cross-examination on Monday. Her testimony comes as the prosecution has sought to show Combs and his inner circle formed a criminal enterprise that used threats, violence, forced labor, drugs, bribery, arson, kidnapping and lies in order to coerce his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura into participating in 'Freak Offs' and to protect the music mogul's reputation. Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted, he could face a sentence of up to life in prison. His defense has acknowledged Combs was violent but has questioned the motives of those testifying, and has said the accusations fall short of a racketeering conspiracy. Here's what we learned on Friday. Mia testified on Thursday that Combs physically and sexually assaulted her, humiliated her and forced her to work grueling hours during her employment. On cross-examination Friday, defense attorney Brian Steel challenged her to explain why she still worked there from 2009 until 2017. 'In an abusive relationship there's a cycle of violence,' she said. 'I was young and manipulated and eager to survive. I'm unraveling a lot of this now in therapy. Nobody was there to say these things that were happening were wrong. There was nobody around us that ever even flinched at his behavior.' 'Why did you need someone else saying that it was wrong of Mr. Combs to make you feel like he would kill you?' Steel asked. Mia said there was a difference between her 'logic brain' and her 'trauma brain,' and the latter often won out. 'Eventually it becomes normalized and you're just trying to get back to the good. You make excuses for people. I'm a people-pleaser, I'm an empath, I'm a rule-follower,' Mia said. 'I just wanted to do my best and make everybody happy all the time.' Steel suggested three times that Mia made up her sexual assault allegations against Combs, but she stood firm. 'What I said in this courtroom is true. I have not lied to anyone at all,' she said. In addition, Steel asked Mia why she sent distraught messages threatening suicide in December 2016 after she learned her primary work project, Revolt Films, would be shutting down. Mia said she had finally gotten to the point where she was working in film and TV and loved what she did, in spite of alleged abuse from her boss. 'I didn't want to leave the company that I built where I was actually starting to see my dreams come to fruition,' she testified. Steel asked why it wouldn't be a good thing, since then she would be away from her abuser. 'At the time I didn't realize that,' Mia said. 'In hindsight, fantastic, but at the time the worst thing in the world.' The defense confronted Mia with about three dozen warm and friendly social media posts Mia made about Combs over the years following the alleged sexual assaults she described to the jury on Thursday. Defense attorney Steel highlighted some of the posts, including birthday wishes and photos of them together at Burning Man and at star-studded events. In some captions she called Combs her 'mentor,' an 'inspiration' and a 'legend,' signing several posts with 'Love You.' For example, in June 2014, Combs posted an Instagram photo of them together for her birthday and wrote, 'Beside every great man is a great woman' and 'Ps sorry I was acting crazy last night.' She reposted it and added, 'love you, you've shown me the world.' However, Mia testified that Combs had threatened her life the night before. She also posted a photo collage of him on Instagram for his 45th birthday, adding, 'Thank you for being the good kind of crazy and continuing to inspire me every day.' Steel challenged how Mia could write those words about someone who 'ruined' her life. On the stand, Mia said social media was about showing how great your life is – even if it isn't true – and said promoting her life around Combs was part of the job. 'The highs were high and the goods were good. You just fought so hard to stay in that,' Mia said. 'I was in fear any time Puff was not happy because I wanted to make sure that he was, because then I was safe,' she also testified. At the end of her direct testimony earlier on Friday, Mia testified about the end of her work relationship with Combs, her struggles with severe PTSD and her inability to keep a job. Mia testified that while she was in South Africa with Ventura in 2015, Combs threatened her, cursed at her, and threatened her job if she didn't return home early. Mia later emailed him about the price of flights and flight changes, asking him to tell her what to do and saying she loved him. 'I'm tiptoeing, that's the way I would survive so I didn't make him more mad or make him think that I thought what he was doing was wrong,' Mia testified. She testified that she tried to 'run away' from the job multiple times but felt she would never be able to be hired again. 'He would have destroyed my reputation,' she said. 'I was scared of him.' Their work relationship broke down for good in the fall of 2016, when Mia said she was told by another executive that Combs wanted to end Revolt Films, her primary project. She said she was in 'shock' and felt betrayed by the fact that Combs didn't tell her himself. Mia testified she hired employment attorneys in 2017 to negotiate her severance and bonuses she still hadn't been paid – a decision that she learned Combs viewed as a betrayal. After a months-long negotiation, they settled for around $400,000, of which she received about $200,000, she said. Beginning two weeks after Cassie Ventura filed her lawsuit against Combs in November 2023, Mia said she received several messages from Combs and his security guard asking for her to call Combs, but she declined, making excuses at times that she didn't have cell service. 'I just didn't want anything to do with him at all,' she testified. 'He was the person I was traumatized by.' She testified she understood the outreach to mean, 'Puff wanted D-Roc (the aforementioned security guard) to get to me and make sure I wasn't a threat.' Mia testified she has severe PTSD and hasn't been able to work since her time working for Combs. When she tried to work, 'I would be triggered by really normal situations with like an overwhelming sense of fear of being in trouble,' she said. For example, someone at work asked her where she was – hoping to get a coffee with her – but she was flooded with fear, she testified. When asked who caused her to have those feelings, Mia said, 'Puff.'
BreakingNews.ie
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- BreakingNews.ie
Sean ‘Diddy' Combs' former PA was ‘too traumatised' to answer his call in 2023
Sean 'Diddy' Combs' former personal assistant said while giving evidence at his sex trafficking trial that she threw her phone across the room in terror and ran outside when she saw the hip-hop mogul calling her days after his long-time ex-girlfriend sued him two years ago. 'It was just so triggering to see that,' said the assistant, who was identified in court only by the pseudonym 'Mia'. Advertisement She was the second of three women expected to give evidence at the trial in Manhattan that they were sexually abused by Combs. Sean 'Diddy' Combs, right, blows kisses during his sex trafficking and racketeering trial in New York (Elizabeth Williams/AP) Bail was repeatedly denied for Combs following his September arrest after prosecutors argued he and his co-conspirators reached out to potential victims or witnesses after the former decade-long girlfriend, R&B singer Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura, sued him in November 2023. The legal case, which alleged years of sexual abuse, was settled within a day for 20 million dollars (£14.8 million). At a September bail hearing, assistant US attorney Emily Johnson said Combs had contacted at least one victim in November 2023 and was in constant contact with witnesses, including as late as last July. Advertisement Mia said she at first was elated to hear from D-Roc, one of Combs' former bodyguards, when he reached out to her days after Cassie's lawsuit — until she realised he was at the Bad Boy Records founder's home and trying to reconnect her with her former boss. Then, she said, she felt 'terrified, threatened, scared, nervous'. Mia said she 'wanted to play dumb' and needed a game plan to protect herself. 'I didn't want my life to be in danger,' Mia said. Advertisement Still, when she soon saw Combs himself trying to call her: 'I threw my phone as far as it would go behind the couch, and I ran outside.' Combs' lawyer Brian Steel launched into his cross-examination by quizzing the woman about several dozen posts she made about Combs, Cassie and other people and events in their orbit. Among them was a still image she posted on Combs' birthday in November 2013 from a comedy video featuring Combs as a doctor helping Mia give birth to a baby. Cassie Ventura, left, and Sean 'Diddy' Combs arrive at a Los Angeles film premiere in 2017 (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) 'Shout out to my mentor,' she wrote, referring to Combs. 'Thank you for always letting me give birth to my dreams.' Advertisement 'Here, you have posted on your personal account your rapist delivering the baby,' Mr Steel said. On Thursday, Mia claimed while giving evidence that she was awakened and then raped by Combs as she slept in a bunk bed in his Los Angeles home just months after he'd forcibly kissed her at his 40th birthday party in 2009. She said sexual assault continued sporadically, seemingly infrequent enough that each time she would think it would never happen again. Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges that could result in a prison term of from 15 years to life if he is convicted. Advertisement Mia, who worked for Combs from 2009 to 2017, including a stretch as an executive at his film studio, said there were exciting times in the job and the 'highs were really high and the lows were really low'. After she left Bad Boy Entertainment, Mia said, she received 250,000 dollars of a 400,000 dollar settlement to reimburse her for promised bonuses that were never paid and for unpaid overtime. But she said she never told her lawyers about the sexual abuse. She acknowledged during her testimony that she referenced her co-workers as 'family' and used the word 'love' in her correspondence with Combs even after he sexually attacked her. 'That's how we all talked to each other,' Mia said. While working for Combs, she said, she dated his sound engineer, although it was not a typical relationship because they rarely saw one another outside work. She said she has not been able to work since leaving the job because of post-traumatic stress. Mia said she would misinterpret emails asking 'where are you?' as scolding. She said someone calling her name from across the room would cause her alarm, even if it was an innocent attempt to get her attention. Throughout his cross-examination, Mr Steel struck a familiar, incredulous refrain, asking: 'Why would you promote the person who has stolen your happiness in life?' Mia told Mr Steel that the posts were a facade. 'Instagram was a place to show how great your life was, even if it was not true,' she explained, adding that followers of her then-public account included many Combs fans. 'Of course you post great times,' she said.
