Sean Combs’ Attorney Suggests ‘Bad’ MDMA Was at Freak-Off Before Hotel Assault
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After spending two days giving explicit details of the alleged physical, emotional, and sexual abuse that she allegedly endured during her decade-long relationship with Sean “Diddy” Combs, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura spent a full day on the witness stand Thursday under arduous cross-examination.
The defense opened by asking Ventura if she was in love with Combs, showing a trove of emails and text messages between the couple. Ventura testified that in the early stages of their relationship, the pair exchanged many loving messages. She said Combs was “very sweet” and “attentive,” at least in the beginning. Eventually, she saw a different, more sinister side, she said. She told jurors that sometimes her seemingly enthusiastic messages were “just words” to pacify Combs because she considered it her “job” to keep him happy. If she didn’t, she said, he could turn violent and threatening in a flash.
The long day ended with Combs’ lawyer Anna Estevao suggesting that Combs had taken a “bad” batch of MDMA during the freak-off that occurred at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles on March 5, 2016. That was the same freak-off that Combs was later seen physically assaulting Ventura near a bank of elevators as she tried to leave the freak-off early. Ventura answered that she wasn’t aware of that possibility. At that point, the judge ended questioning for the day, ordering everyone back to resume Friday morning.
Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York said they were planning to call Danity Kane and Diddy-Dirty Money singer Dawn Richard to the stand as their next witness following Ventura. Richard filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against Combs last year and claimed that she personally witnessed Combs physically attack Ventura.
The 38-year-old, who is eight months pregnant with her third child, was poised and confident throughout her direct examination from AUSA prosecutor Emily Johnson. Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment alleging sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Combs was animated during Ventura’s cross-examination, appearing somewhat frustrated with the tedious, slow pace that his attorney was taking when quizzing Ventura. He passed several sticky notes over to his attorneys and during a brief break towards the end of the day, clasped his hands in a pleading motion to Estevao. When they resumed, Estevao focused on a long text exchange between Combs and Ventura right before the March 2016 freak-off, where Ventura seemed to first propose to do the freak-off that day. Combs was seen nodding his head in approval as Ventura confirmed what she had texted.
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At the heart of the defense on Thursday was the contention that Ventura was never, as she testified earlier in the week, coerced into participating in sexual encounters. The defense pointed to several text messages like the ones Ventura sent Combs in 2009 that read, “I’m always ready to freak off lolol,” and “I just want it to be uncontrollable.”
Ventura said messages sent in the context of planning the drug-fueled sexual encounters that Combs referred to as “freak offs” were a “typical” occurrence. Under direct testimony earlier this week, Ventura said she participated in hundreds of freak offs with Combs, unable to give a precise number.
She said the sexual encounters with male escorts could last up to four days and often devolved into Combs getting violent with her. On Thursday, Combs’ lawyer Estevao asked Ventura about which phone she preferred to have the freak offs recorded on, prompting Ventura to reply, “I didn’t want them to be recorded at all.”
Ventura remained composed and held her ground when confronted with highly explicit messages she sent to Combs, clutching what appeared to be red rosary beads. She testified that she was more open with Combs about her feelings than he was and eventually started to feel like Combs was exploiting her.
“I need to feel safe,” she wrote to Combs in a 2009 email shared in court. “The last time was a mistake but since has made me feel a little dirty and grimy, as opposed to sexual and spontaneous,” she continued. Ventura told Combs she felt comfortable taking part in freak offs when she believed they were mutually in love, but she was beginning to lose confidence in their bond. “That’s the only reason I go back and forth in my mind with wanting to do the freak offs,” she wrote. “I get nervous that I’m just becoming that girlfriend that you get your fantasies off with, and that’s it, I don’t get the other part.”
Throughout the morning session, it appeared Estevao was trying to portray Ventura as eager, needy, and jealous. A main theme of their defense is that the couple was in a mutually toxic relationship, as opposed to one based on sex-trafficking. Ventura said it was true she and Combs discussed the so-called “swingers” lifestyle and that drug use was a major part of the relationship. She agreed Combs appeared to be addicted to opiates at one point, like she was, but she said his true drug of choice was ecstasy. She repeated her prior testimony that Combs would attempt to contact her incessantly if she didn’t answer his calls and that he often was highly controlling when it came to her whereabouts and appearance.
On Thursday afternoon, the defense kept returning to similar topics discussed earlier in the day, including alleged jealousy and drug use in the relationship. Ventura said she started a brief romantic relationship with the actor Michael B. Jordan after learning in 2015 that Combs had been spending time with another woman. Ventura said Combs’ alleged infidelity “hurt” her.
Jordan, the actor currently starring in the blockbuster movie Sinners, was mentioned without context during jury selection. As Rolling Stone previously reported, Jordan is the actor alluded to in Ventura’s November 2023 lawsuit against Combs. In her complaint, Ventura said she started a flirtatious relationship with an unidentified actor in 2015, and that Combs “called the actor and threatened him” when he found out.
Ventura also confirmed Combs overdosed on painkillers in February 2012. With Estevao asking her to recall the incident, Ventura told jurors that shortly after she and Combs finished a freak off, Combs went to a party at the Playboy Mansion and ended up in such bad shape, she took him to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with having suffered an overdose. “From what he told me, he took a very strong opiate that night, but we didn’t know what was happening, so we took him to the hospital,” she testified, according to CNN.
Combs’ all-star defense team, which includes celebrity lawyers Brian Steel and Marc Agnifilo, is expected to cross-examine Ventura until the mid-day break on Friday — although they attempted to extended that time until possibly Monday. Co-lead counsel Teny Geragos told U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian that prosecutors’ direct examination of Ventura went “much differently than I expected. So we are kind of changing our strategy.” Judge Subramanian quickly shut down the request.
Over the course of Ventura’s testimony from Tuesday and Wednesday, she walked the jury through the rapid progression of their relationship from when she first met Combs as a 19-year-old to being introduced to the “concept” of a freak off when she was 22. “It never stopped our whole relationship,” she said. “And it was expected of me and it made me feel horrible about myself.”
Ventura said Combs beat her physically throughout their relationship, including in front of male escorts, her friends and his employees. “He would grab me up, push me down, hit me in the side of the head, kick me,” Ventura testified, pictures of her injuries flashing on the screen. “You name it.”
The few times Ventura’s voice quivered and she began to cry was when she explained how she wanted Combs to “recognize the pain that he put me through” and the detrimental toll it took on her self-worth and mental health. “I was spinning out and I didn’t — I didn’t want to be alive anymore at that point,” Ventura said through tears speaking about her struggle with suicide ideation in 2023.
This story was updated on Thursday, May 15, at 6:47 p.m. to include details of the conclusion of Thursday’s proceedings.