Casandra “Cassie” Ventura has taken the stand for a second day of testimony in Sean Combs’ criminal trial, sharing harrowing details about their relationship, including allegations of rape, physical assault, and coerced sexual encounters.
Per Rolling Stone US, during her testimony, Ventura read text messages she sent to Combs following his 2016 physical assault at the InterContinental hotel, which was captured on surveillance footage. The jury reviewed the video before Ventura read Combs’ subsequent messages, which included pleas like “I got six kids,” “Yo pls call Im surrounded,” and “For my kids help.”
Ventura testified that the attack left her with a fat lip and black eye. “You are sick for thinking it’s okay to do what you’ve done please stay far away from me,” she texted him. She explained that she declined to give Combs’ name to police because “I didn’t want to hurt him that way. It was just too much going on.”
Wearing a grey turtleneck dress in court, the 38-year-old R&B singer also alleged that Combs raped her in 2018 as their relationship was ending. She described having what she thought was a “closure conversation” during dinner in Malibu, after which Combs drove her home and “he raped me in my living room.”
“I just remember crying and saying ‘no’, but it was very fast,” Ventura stated, adding that she wasn’t even sure Combs noticed her crying.
The testimony follows Ventura’s November 2023 civil lawsuit against Combs, which prompted a federal investigation. Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to five felony charges including sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years to life in prison.
Ventura detailed numerous alleged incidents of violence throughout their decade-long relationship, including during what Combs called “freak-offs” – drug-fuelled sexual encounters involving male sex workers. She claimed these incidents happened “too frequently” and often resulted in physical injuries.
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One particularly disturbing incident from 2013 involved Combs allegedly attacking Ventura at her apartment while her friends were present. “I hurt my eyebrow on the corner of my bed,” she testified, pointing to a scar she still covers with makeup.
Ventura also testified about the physical toll of the freak-offs, reading text messages about sores on her tongue from performing oral sex and taking drugs. She mentioned suffering frequent urinary tract infections yet continuing to perform despite “horrible” pain.
According to Ventura, Combs recorded these encounters and used the videos as “blackmail materials,” threatening to release them when she dated other men, including Kid Cudi. She claimed Combs once threatened to blow up Cudi’s car, and in 2012, an “incendiary device” did indeed destroy Cudi’s Porsche.
Ventura testified that she developed an “off-and-on” opiate addiction as a way to cope. “Opiates made me feel numb, which is why I relied on them so heavily… I didn’t want to feel what was actually going on in my mind, in my life, in real time. It was just an escape for me.”
In 2023, Ventura entered rehab and a trauma therapy program after experiencing flashbacks and suicidal thoughts. “I couldn’t take the pain that I was in anymore,” she testified, “and so I just tried to walk out the front door into traffic and my husband would not let me.”
