Diddy trial: Cassie outlines sexual, physical abuse from the stand
Ex-girlfriend of Sean Combs, Cassie, was on the stand for the third day of the trial, describing Combs’ physical, sexual and psychological abuse.
Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions that some readers may find disturbing.
Prosecutors in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal sex-crimes trial continue to zero in on the music mogul’s decades of alleged abuse as they unveil harrowing witness testimony.
The high-profile legal proceeding resumed in Manhattan court on May 15 after Combs’ former girlfriend, singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura Fine, took the stand for two days of emotional accounts on the pair’s allegedly abusive relationship.
Ventura Fine is expected to face cross-examination from Combs’ attorneys, who have signaled they will ask her about what they have called her own history of domestic violence. The rapper’s lawyers have also alleged she was motivated by money to get back at him.
Cassie’s testimony comes a year after CNN released 2016 hotel surveillance video that showed Combs kicking, hitting and dragging the woman during an altercation at a Los Angeles-area hotel. Combs apologized for his violent behavior soon after the video’s release.
Before Combs, 55, was arrested in September 2024 on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution, Ventura Fine accused the hip-hop icon of rape, physical abuse and sex trafficking in a November 2023 lawsuit, which was quickly settled one day after its filing.
In court, Ventura Fine said Combs repeatedly threatened to release videos of her participating in his alleged drug-fueled “freak offs,” adding that the sexually explicit performances would make Cassie “look like a slut” and “ruin everything that (she) had worked for.”
Asked by prosecutors why she decided to testify against Combs, Ventura Fine said she could no longer bear the emotional burden of years of his alleged physical and emotional abuse.
“I can’t carry this anymore,” Ventura said. “I can’t carry the shame, the guilt, the way he treated people like they were disposable. What’s right is right, what’s wrong is wrong. I came here to do the right thing.”
Ventura Fine in court testified that in early 2023, around the time before she went to rehab for opioid addiction and began trauma therapy, she experienced suicidal ideation.
“I was spinning out” at the time, Ventura Fine testified. “I didn’t want to be alive anymore at that point.”
She recalled a time when she went home to her husband Alex Fine and children, “I remember telling him, ‘You can do this without me.’” Ventura Fine said during testimony it all just felt “too painful” and that “I tried walking out the door into traffic and my husband wouldn’t let me.”
Diddy on trial newsletter: Step inside the courtroom as music mogul faces sex-crimes charges.
Another major revelation came from 2018, after Ventura Fine and Combs were no longer together and she had started dating her now-husband, Alex Fine. She said she and Combs met up for dinner, during which he was friendly and kind.
Afterward, he drove her back to her home and walked her inside. “And then he raped me in my living room,” Cassie alleged. She said she cried and told him “no” during the alleged rape.
Prosecutors asked how she felt in that moment: “It was like someone taking something from you.”
Cassie testified about her brief relationship with rapper Kid Cudi in 2011, which began after they started working together on music.
Ventura Fine said she didn’t initially tell Combs about Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, but Combs went through her phone during a “freak off” and found out about the relationship.
He allegedly became enraged after he saw the emails, lunging at Cassie with a wine bottle opener between his fingers, she testified. As she left Combs’ house, Ventura Fine said the rapper kicked her in the back. When she got back to her hotel room, someone had urinated on the floor, knocked over the furniture and defecated in the toilet without flushing it.
Cassie alleges Diddy assaulted and threatened her over Kid Cudi relationship
Ventura Fine also testified about an alleged August 2017 incident, telling the court that while preparing to go to the OVO Music Festival, two friends, identified as Mia and Deonte, witnessed Combs enter her room and attack her in her sleep.
Deonte and Mia jumped on Combs’ back, and he threw her into the bed frame, Ventura Fine said, which caused a gash on her eyebrow. The court then saw a photo of her face with the gash and some blood. Combs had a plastic surgeon whom Ventura Fine went to after the incident, she said, revealing she had a permanent scar on her eyebrow.
In texts shown to the jury, Ventura Fine sent Combs a photo of the gash and wrote: “So you can remember.” Combs replied that Ventura Fine didn’t know when to stop during arguments, and she wrote back that she didn’t know what she’d done to deserve it.
Several members of the embattled rap mogul’s family, including his adult children, have turned out in New York this week as his criminal trial gets underway.From stepson Quincy Brown to Combs’ biological sons and daughters and former partners, here’s a look at his loved ones who have been spotted at the courthouse.
Combs is facing federal sex-crimes and trafficking charges in a sprawling suit that has eroded his status as a power player and kingmaker in the entertainment industry.
He was arrested in September 2024 and has been charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty to all five counts.
Racketeering is the participation in an illegal scheme under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Statute, or RICO, as a way for the U.S. government to prosecute organizations that contribute to criminal activity.
Using RICO law, which is typically aimed at targeting multi-person criminal organizations, prosecutors allege that Combs coerced victims, some of whom they say were sex workers, through intimidation and narcotics to participate in “freak offs” — sometimes dayslong sex performances that federal prosecutors claim they have video of.
The trial will not be televised, as cameras are typically not allowed in federal criminal trial proceedings.
USA TODAY will be reporting live from the courtroom.
Contributing: USA TODAY staff; Reuters
This article discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental and/or substance use disorders, you can call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration‘s free and confidential treatment referral and information service at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). It’s available 24/7 in English and Spanish (TTY: 1-800-487-4889).
If you are a survivor of sexual assault, RAINN offers support through the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) and Hotline.RAINN.org and en Español RAINN.org/es.
