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Singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura gave emotional testimony in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, May 13, sharing disturbing details of her 11-year relationship with music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who faces multiple federal sex crime charges.
Speaking as the prosecution’s star witness, Cassie recalled her first kiss with Diddy in August 2007 during her 21st birthday celebration in Las Vegas after a VMA event. “There was a 17-year age difference,” she told the jury. “I was really confused at the time, you know, new artist… I was pretty naive.” When asked if she wanted the kiss, she replied, “No, not on my birthday,” adding that she cried afterward.
Following that night, she continued seeing Combs in New York, often visiting him at the Trump Hotel in Columbus Circle. “I wanted to be around Sean for the same reasons as everyone else at the time this exciting, entertaining, fun guy who also happened to have my career in his hands,” she explained.
Now eight months pregnant and married to personal trainer Alex Fine, Cassie gave powerful testimony describing how Diddy allegedly forced her into sex acts and physically and emotionally abused her over the years.
The trial, which began on Monday, May 12, opened with surveillance footage showing Diddy beating and kicking Ventura in a hotel elevator bank in 2016 a key piece of evidence presented to the jury.
U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told the court that Combs used his power in the entertainment industry to drug women and pressure them into participating in exploitative sexual encounters, often involving male sex workers, at events referred to as “Freak Offs.”
Defense attorney Teny Geragos countered that all sexual encounters between Combs and Cassie were consensual. She emphasized that Cassie stayed with him for over a decade. “She made a choice, every single day for years a choice to stay with him,” Geragos argued. “When she made the choice to leave, she communicated it and ran into the arms of another man a physical trainer Combs had hired to train her.”
Diddy, who was arrested in September 2024, has pleaded not guilty to five counts including sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted on all charges, he faces a possible life sentence. He remains in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Complex in Brooklyn.
The trial is expected to continue for several weeks, with more witnesses slated to testify on the alleged exploitation and abuse carried out by one of the most powerful figures in the music industry.
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