Sean Combs ‘would stomp me in the head’, Cassie tells sex-trafficking trial

Sean “Diddy” Combs’s former girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie, has told his-sex trafficking trial she was abused and sexually exploited by him for years, a day after prosecutors showed jurors video of the music mogul beating her in a hotel in 2016.

Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, is the central witness in prosecutors’ attempts to show Combs used his status as a powerful executive to orchestrate a deviant empire of exploitation, coercing women into abusive sex parties he called “freak-offs” and becoming violent if they refused.

Lawyers for three-time Grammy winner argue that although he could be violent, Combs never veered into sex trafficking and racketeering, telling jurors the sexual acts were consensual. Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty.

Cassie sued him in 2023 alleging years of abuse. The suit was settled within hours, but was followed by dozens of similar legal claims and sparked a criminal investigation.

Defence lawyer Teny Geragos told the jury during opening statements on Monday that Combs’s accusers were after his money, adding that jurors might think he’s a “jerk” and might not condone his “kinky sex”, but that “he’s not charged with being a jerk”.

Combs has been jailed in Brooklyn since his arrest in September. If convicted, he could receive at least 15 years and up to life in prison.

Cassie, 38, told the jury on Tuesday that her relationship with Combs ran the gamut from good times to arguments and physical altercations.

They met 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.

“If they were violent arguments, it would usually result in some sort of physical abuse and dragging, just different things,” Cassie said.

Asked how frequently Combs became violent with her, Cassie softly responded: “Too frequently.”

She said Combs “would mash me in the head, knock me over, drag me, kick me. Stomp me in the head if I was down”, leaving her with bruises and black eyes.

Cassie Ventura with Sean Combs in 2015. PA Media

Cassie, who is pregnant, was emotional from the start, taking deep breaths and sometimes pausing as she spoke. She said she was barely 22 when Combs first asked her to take part in “freak-offs”. She said she was “confused, nervous, but also loved him very much”.

Over time, she said she began feeling as if she could not say no to the demands because “there were blackmail materials to make me feel like if I didn’t do it, it would be held over my head in that way or these things would become public”. She said it was always in “the back of my mind that I’ll be hurt by him”.
Cassie said the highly orchestrated “freak-offs” stemmed from Combs’s interest in voyeurism. The marathon encounters lasted anywhere from 36 or 48 hours, and she said the longest was four days.

She said the encounters involved hiring a sex worker and “setting up this experience so that I could perform for Sean”. This took place in private, often in dark hotel rooms, unlike Combs’s very public White Parties in the Hamptons that attracted A-list celebrities and gossip columnists.

She felt “confused, nervous, but also loved him very much”.

“Freak-offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again,” she said. Each time, she added, she had to recuperate from lack of sleep, alcohol, drugs “and other substances”, and “having sex with a stranger for days”.

Combs became increasing controlling during their relationship, Cassie said, and became abusive over the smallest perceived slights. “You make the wrong face, and the next thing I knew I was getting hit in the face,” she said.

“Sean is a really polarising person, also really charming,” Cassie said. “It’s hard to really be able to decide in that moment what you need when he’s telling you what he wants. I just didn’t know. I didn’t know what would happen.”

A surveillance video made public last year showed Combs beating her at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016. CNN aired the video last year, prompting Combs to apologise.

The video, which was played for jurors on Monday, 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, told the court on 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”.

Mr Florez said he refused when Combs offered him a stack of money and said: “Don’t tell nobody.”

Earlier on Tuesday, the trial resumed with Combs’s lawyer questioning Daniel Phillip, a male stripper who says he was paid to have sex with Cassie while Combs watched. Mr Phillip said on Monday that he stopped seeing the couple after Combs assaulted Cassie.

In opening statements on Monday, assistant US attorney Emily Johnson said Combs sexually exploited and beat other women, including a woman identified only as Jane, who Combs is accused of attacking after she confronted him about the “freak-offs”.