Takeaways from Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial: Cassie Ventura finishes testimony and Dawn Richard begins

The singer Cassie Ventura wrapped up her dramatic testimony Friday afternoon after answering questions for nearly 20 hours over four days at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ racketeering and sex-trafficking trial. Ventura, Combs’ former longtime girlfriend, is the star witness in the case and has alleged Combs physically and sexually abused her and used violence and blackmail to make her participate in drug-fueled sex parties known as “Freak Offs” over more than a decade. Friday was her second day of cross-examination, as defense attorneys asked about her treatment for PTSD, challenged the timeline of her allegations and highlighted an eight-figure financial settlement she received. Ventura, who is pregnant and due next month, also answered questions from the prosecution in a short redirect as the court made efforts to complete her testimony before her baby arrives. The defense has attempted to portray Combs as a jealous and occasionally violent man with a drug problem, as opposed to the head of a criminal enterprise, and has argued the women consented to the sexual arrangements. Combs has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He could face up to life in prison if convicted. To end the week, Dawn Richard, a former member of Combs’ group Danity Kane, took the stand late Friday. She is set to resume her testimony Monday morning. Here’s what we learned in court on Friday. Efforts to challenge rape testimony In cross-examination, defense attorney Anna Estevao focused in on the timeline of Ventura’s rape allegation in an attempt to challenge her testimony. Ventura testified Combs raped her after a dinner they had in Malibu, California, in August 2018 before the Burning Man festival. Ventura has previously asserted in her 2023 lawsuit that the rape occurred in September 2018. Estevao also suggested Ventura told investigators the same during a 2023 meeting around the time she filed the lawsuit. The defense also brought up several text exchanges and meetings which happened in August and in subsequent months. On September 27, 2018, she and Combs saw each other and had sex, according to Ventura’s testimony. Her now-husband called her on FaceTime while she was with Combs, she said. Estevao suggested Ventura told her husband this encounter was actually when Combs raped her. “That wasn’t the evening when I was raped,” Ventura said on the stand. Her husband left the courtroom during this part of testimony. The judge previously determined Fine could not listen to his wife’s testimony about the alleged raped because he could be called to the stand later in the trial. Under redirect questioning from the prosecution, Assistant US Attorney Emily Johnson revisited the defense’s suggestions she was inconsistent. “Do you have any doubt that Sean raped you?” Johnson asked her. “No,” Ventura said. More attempts to undermine the rape allegation During cross-examination, Ventura was questioned about Combs’ state of mind. Ventura answered attorneys’ questions about a meeting she had with federal agents on November 30, 2023, which was just a couple of weeks after she filed her civil lawsuit against Combs. At that meeting, Ventura testified she told federal agents she and Combs went out to dinner in September 2018 and he was acting “strangely” and “anxious.” Ventura also said she told prosecutors in the November meeting Combs’ behavior that night could have been due to his “bipolar disorder” and he wasn’t “in his right mind.” It was right after this dinner Ventura says Combs raped her. Multiple eight-figure settlements In a short re-cross-examination, Ventura said she made a demand for compensation from the InterContinental Hotel and expects to receive about $10 million from them. She settled with the hotel within the last month, she testified. The settlement stems from a March 2016 incident in which Combs grabbed, kicked and dragged Ventura in an elevator lobby. Surveillance video of the assault has been the central piece of evidence in this trial so far. CNN first published video of the incident last year. Ventura testified earlier this week she settled a separate lawsuit against Combs and his companies for $20 million. In redirect, Johnson asked Ventura if she’d give back the $20 million settlement with Combs if it meant she never had to have endured “Freak Offs” in the past. “I’d give that money back if I never had to have ‘Freak Offs,’” she said. Bursting into tears, she added, “If I never had to have ‘Freak Offs’ I would have had agency and autonomy.” Audibly upset, she said, “And I wouldn’t have had to work so hard to get it back.” In final questions from the prosecution, Ventura said she does not have a financial stake in the outcome of Combs’ trial. ‘I don’t hate him,’ Ventura says Ventura testified she saw Combs voluntarily at a friend’s birthday a month after she says he raped her in August 2018. She said she still had feelings for him then and did not hate him at the time – or even now. “I don’t hate him,” Ventura testified. “Do you still have love for him?” Estevao asked. “I have love for the past and what it was,” Ventura said. Ventura was treated for PTSD In early 2023, Ventura went to the inpatient treatment center Willow House for 45 days for mental health problems and was treated for PTSD, she testified. The therapies included Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and somatic experiencing, which involved recounting memories or reimagining traumatic experiences, as well as neurofeedback treatment, she said. Ventura gave an example of somatic experiencing: She said if there was a time when you were getting beat up in a room and couldn’t walk out, you would reimagine it in a way where you were actually able to leave the room. Ventura says she was ‘basically a sex worker’ Ventura testified on redirect her career suffered and she “couldn’t do many of the things” she wanted because of her many “Freak Offs” with Combs. “I had a whole other job,” she testified. Johnson, the prosecutor, asked her what the other job was. “Basically a sex worker,” Ventura said. The judge granted a defense motion to strike Ventura’s response from the court record, meaning the jury cannot consider it during deliberations. After defense attorney Anna Estevao finished her main cross-examination of Ventura and returned to the defense table, Combs stood and hugged her in a close embrace. Combs was ‘intoxicated’ during 2016 hotel assault, Ventura says Estevao asked Ventura a series of questions about the March 5, 2016, assault at the InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles. The defense attorney asked Ventura if she told investigators in previous interviews Combs was “black out” during the incident. “I believe he was intoxicated,” she testified, adding everyone’s perception of a “black out” is different. The jury saw a message Ventura sent Combs five days after the assault describing the abuse and his state of mind. “When you get fked up the wrong way you always want to show me that you have the power, and you knock me around. I’m not a rag doll, I’m someone’s child,” she wrote in the message read aloud in court. Ventura testified earlier this week the hotel assault came after she tried to leave a “Freak Off” before it was “over.” Ventura threatened man in recording The jury heard a recording Ventura captured of a conversation she had with a man in Atlantic City in March 2014 after the man claimed he’d seen a sexually explicit video of her. In the recording, she threatened the man multiple times. “I will cut you up and put you in the fking dirt right now if you have it,” she said. “I’m going to kill you and then he’s gonna kill you again.” Ventura has previously told the jury Combs pushed her to get to the bottom of the situation. Whether there actually was an explicit video of her or how the situation was resolved was not established in Ventura’s testimony. On redirect, Ventura testified she was “feeling pressure from Sean” and said he directed her to not let the man, identified only as Sugin court, out of her sight. “He just texted me quite a bit, called me quite a bit about it, so I felt like I had to handle it,” she said. The end of the relationship Ventura and Combs dated on and off from 2007 to 2018, and Ventura offered her view on the end of the relationship. After the death of Kim Porter, the late model and actress who shared three children with Combs, Combs posted on social media he and Porter were “more than soulmates.” Around the time of her memorial service, Ventura texted Combs it hurt her feelings. “Then you posted that Kim was your soulmate, What was the 11 years all about,” she wrote. Porter’s memorial service was the last time Ventura and Combs saw each other in person. In the years after their 2018 split, Combs sent Ventura texts saying he missed her and was “truly” happy for her, according to texts read aloud in court. “I hope you can forgive me,” he wrote in a text message in 2020. “We’re honestly lucky to be alive. God was watching over us.” Star witness and husband issue statements After her testimony ended, her attorney Douglas Wigdor read aloud a statement outside court from Ventura reflecting on her experience. “This week has been extremely challenging, but also remarkably empowering and healing for me,” he said on her behalf. “I hope that my testimony has given strength and a voice to other survivors, and can help others who have suffered to speak up and also heal from abuse and fear. For me, the more I heal, the more I can remember. And the more I can remember, the more I will never forget.” Wigdor also read aloud a statement from Ventura’s husband Alex Fine. “Over the past five days, the world has gotten to witness the strength and bravery of my wife, freeing herself of her past,” he said. “I did not save Cassie, as some have said. To say that is an insult to the years of painful work my wife has done to save herself. Cassie saved Cassie. She alone broke free from abuse, coercion, violence and threats. She did the work of fighting the demons that only a demon himself could have done to her.” Baby oil, lubricant, drugs and cash found in Combs’ hotel room after arrest, special agent says Investigators found baby oil, lubricant, drugs and cash inside the New York hotel room where Combs was staying when he was arrested on September 16, 2024, Homeland Security Investigations special agent Yasin Binda testified Friday. Investigators found resealable bags and bottles of baby oil and lubricant in a closet, in the bathroom, on the nightstand and elsewhere in the room, according to photo and Binda’s testimony. Two small bags with pink powder were found inside another bottle of medication in a nightstand in the bedroom, Binda said. The pink powder in one bag tested positive for ketamine, and the other tested positive for both MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, and ketamine, according to a stipulation read in court. The jury the recovered illicit drugs in the courtroom passing around an evidence bag hold the packets of pink powder. A black fanny pack containing $9,000 in cash was also found, Binda testified. On cross-examination, Binda said it appeared a woman had been staying with him at the hotel. Prosecutors have said Combs coerced women into participating in “Freak Offs” involving baby oil, lubricant, drugs and male escorts who were paid thousands of dollars in cash. Danity Kane singer bolsters Ventura’s account Dawn Richard, a former member of the musical group Danity Kane, testified Friday she saw Combs attack Ventura in 2009. “He came downstairs screaming, belligerent, asking where his food was, and proceeded to hit her over the head, kicked her and beat her to the ground in front of us,” Richard testified. Richard said she was in the kitchen with Ventura, who was cooking eggs, when Combs came and asked where his eggs were. He then took the skillet with the eggs, “tried to hit her” and she fell to the ground, Richard said. She said it seemed like Ventura dropped to the ground because she anticipated the hit. “She went into the fetal position,” she said. Combs then dragged Ventura upstairs by her hair and with his arm around her neck, Richard said. She recalled hearing “glass breaking and yelling” from upstairs. Richard said she didn’t say anything to intervene or call the police because she was afraid. She said she was “scared to do anything in fear of what that might mean for me too.” The next day, Combs asked Richard and another woman who was present during the incident to come to his home, Richard said. Combs brought them into the recording studio with him, locked the door, and told them what they saw was “passion” and what lovers do, she testified. Combs told them it was in their “best interest if we didn’t say anything” and “where he comes from, people go missing if they talk,” Richard testified. Richard, 42, signed with Bad Boy Records and worked for Combs – who she called “Puff” – from 2004 to 2011. Combs formed the all-female pop group Danity Kane as part of the MTV reality series “Making the Band.” Richard filed a lawsuit last September accusing Combs of sexual battery, sexual harassment and false imprisonment, among other allegations.