SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
By Jack Queen and Jonathan Stempel
Warning: This article contains graphic details that may distress some readers.
New York: Sean “Diddy” Combs’ defence team sought to portray Casandra Ventura as a willing participant in his drug-fuelled sex performances known as freak offs in a bid to undercut prosecutors at the hip-hop mogul’s sex-trafficking trial.
Ventura, a rhythm and blues singer known as Cassie, is the star government witness against Combs, who has pleaded not guilty to five felony counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Sean “Diddy” Combs and Cassie Ventura in 2018.Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
The 38-year-old Ventura had previously told jurors in Manhattan federal court that Combs coerced and blackmailed her throughout their 11-year relationship, which ended in 2018, into freak offs that he orchestrated and that she hated.
She said she participated at first because she loved Combs and wanted to make him happy, but that his abuse grew over time.
Combs’ legal team wants to show the relationship was more complicated, with Ventura wanting more attention and at fault for violence and her own infidelity. The defence also wants to show Ventura was financially motivated to get back at Combs.
A courtroom sketch of Casandra Ventura walking out past Sean Combs after testifying.Credit: AP
On Thursday, New York time, defence lawyer Anna Estevao showed the 12 jurors and six alternates a series of emails and text messages from early in Combs’ and Ventura’s relationship, including some that were sexually explicit.
They included early communications where Ventura told Combs she was always ready for a freak off or sex, and where Ventura and Combs professed love for each other.
“I wanted to spend so much time with him, at this point in 2010, because I’d fallen in love with him and I cared about him very much,” Ventura said.
Ventura acknowledged having had jealousy toward Kim Porter, a former model who had three children with Combs. Porter died in 2018.
The defence also displayed messages from long after Ventura claimed Combs began abusing her, in an attempt to show jurors his conduct was not coercive.
These included a 2017 text where Ventura told Combs she loved freak offs, and a text where Combs said there was no pressure to participate.
Ventura told jurors not to take what she wrote literally. “Loving FO’s were just words, at that point,” she said.
Combs, 55, has been held since September in a Brooklyn jail when not in court. If convicted on all counts, the rapper and founder of Bad Boy Records could face a minimum 15 years in prison and life behind bars.
In 2019, Ventura married personal trainer Alex Fine and is pregnant with her third child.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian – irritated with the slow pace of the cross-examination – said he planned to give the defence less than two days to question Ventura, the same amount of time prosecutors needed. Ventura may finish testifying on Friday, New York time.
Part of the criminal case stems from Ventura’s November 2023 civil lawsuit against Combs. She testified that he agreed after 24 hours to settle for $20 million.
Asked on Wednesday why she decided to testify against Combs, Ventura said she could no longer bear the emotional burden of years of his physical and emotional abuse.
“I can’t carry the shame, the guilt, the way he treated people like they were disposable,” she said. “I came here to do the right thing.”
Also known during his career as Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, Combs founded Bad Boy Records and is credited with helping turn artists like Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans, Notorious B.I.G. and Usher into stars in the 1990s and 2000s.
Testimony began on Monday and the trial could last two months.
