Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial day four: defense cross-examines Cassie
The strategy of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ defense started to come into focus as his attorneys cross-examined his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura.
On her third day of testimony, Cassie Ventura Fine revealed the extent of her and Sean “Diddy” Combs’ drug use in their decade together, with Combs at one point hospitalized due to “a very strong” opiate.
While cross-examining Ventura Fine, one of Combs’ lawyers, Anna Estevao, revealed he overdosed on painkillers in 2012. Estevao asked Ventura Fine if she recalled the overdose, and Ventura placed the incident around the same time that Whitney Houston died on Feb. 11, 2012.
Ventura Fine recalled they’d had a “freak off” that night and had gone to a sex club in San Bernardino, California. She said Combs later went to a party at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, but she went home.
Combs overdosed on painkillers, and she took him to the hospital, Ventura Fine told Estevao.
Ventura Fine revealed they had both tried to stop using drugs at times in their relationship, but rehab did not feel like an option for them. They consumed many substances for their “freak offs” and called each other “get-high” partners, she said.
Combs would use drugs “daily,” Ventura Fine testified. On May 14, during questioning from the prosecution, she said she saw Combs use ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana, ketamine and GHB. Combs got prescriptions for opiates from doctors in “anybody’s name … whoever’s name hadn’t been used a lot,” she testified.
She saw Combs experience withdrawal multiple times, and his mood changed on them, she told the court.
USA TODAY has reached out to Combs’ representative for comment.
Cassie used drugs to stay awake, ‘feel numb’ during ‘freak offs’
During opening statements, one of Combs’ attorneys, Teny Geragos, told the judge and jury that drugs were for “personal use” by Combs and women participating in “freak offs.” Meanwhile, prosecutors have proposed drugs were a means by which Combs would ensure they could “stay awake and perform for him for hours and days on end.”
On May 14, Ventura Fine revealed she had developed an opioid addiction during her decade-long on-and-off relationship with Combs and sought professional help five or six times. The last time she used opiates was in 2022, she said.
Drugs would help make her “feel numb” amid “freak offs” – sexual performances with Combs and escorts that she said lasted as long as four days – which she described as “hell” on her body.
She used drugs like ecstasy during “freak offs” so she could “just remain high and not be present with the experience” because it was “something I hated doing,” she said on May 13. She always took drugs before a freak off, she said.
Contributing: Pamela Avila, Patrick Ryan and Aysha Bagchi, USA TODAY
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