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NEW YORK. — The focus of the second day of Sean “Diddy” Combs’s criminal trial on Tuesday was the prosecution’s star witness, singer Casandra Ventura, known as Cassie.
Cassie, who is eight months pregnant, spent five hours telling the jury about her submission to an “impossible to count” number of sessions of sex with strangers.
Here are our THREE takeaways from Cassie’s first day:
1. HARASSMENT, ROMANCE AND RUIN
Combs signed Cassie to his Bad Boy Records label in 2006, when she was 19.
“Sean controlled a lot of my life, whether it was career, the way I dressed, everything,” Cassie told the jury. She described herself then as “super young, naive, total people pleaser.”
Their relationship evolved into romance on a 21st birthday trip with Combs and friends to Las Vegas.
“He kissed me in the bathroom” of his hotel suite, Cassie said, adding that she was “confused,” cried, and ran off.
But soon they were meeting in hotels. When Combs took her on a weekend in Miami, they had sex for the first time on a boat, Cassie said. They drank wine during the day and took ecstasy at night. Eventually, she realised she was just one of Combs’ many girlfriends. She knew he had a family and children. The couple tried to keep their relationship secret for several years.
“I was in love with him,” Cassie said. “It was my first real adult relationship.
“If they were violent arguments, they would result in physical abuse,” she said. “Mash my head, knock me over, drag me, kick me.”
2. SEX WITH STRANGERS AND SHAME
Within a year of hooking up, Cassie testified, Combs started asking her to participate in voyeuristic “freak-offs” where she had sex with other men, typically paid escorts, in front of Combs and sometimes with Combs and another man having sex with her at the same time.
“So, I could perform for Sean,” Cassie said. “Eventually it became a job for me.”
The freak-offs started when she was 22. Combs, a music industry mogul 17 years older, staged the first session at his home in Los Angeles.
“I was confused, nervous, but loved him very much and wanted him to be happy,” Cassie told the jury. “I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice. I didn’t know what ‘no’ could mean, what ‘no’ could turn into.”
3. TRAFFICKING, TRANSPORTATION FOR PROSTITUTION AND RACKETEERING CONSPIRACY
Prosecutor Johnson led Cassie through a series of questions. Cassie herself is the first and most serious victim of sex trafficking, according to the government.
The “freak-offs” occurred mostly in hotels around the U.S. — in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, and Atlanta — and in getaways like Ibiza, Spain, and Turks and Caicos, she said.
They would book suites under pseudonyms like Jackie Starr and Frank Black.
Combs’ staff and assistants not only helped obtain drugs, Cassie testified, his employees often obtained supplies for the sensual escapades — bottles of Johnson’s Baby Oil (which would be heated in water to make their skin glisten), Astroglide lubricant, and scented candles. — itv.com.
Online Reporter