WASHINGTON — Hurling a sandwich at a federal agent was an act of protest for Washington, D.C., resident Sean Charles Dunn. A jury must decide if it was also a federal crime.
“No matter who you are, you can’t just go around throwing stuff at people because you’re mad,” Assistant U.S. Atty. John Parron told jurors Tuesday at the start of Dunn’s trial on a misdemeanor assault charge.
Dunn doesn’t dispute that he threw his submarine-style sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent outside a nightclub on the night of Aug. 10. It was an “exclamation point” for Dunn as he expressed his opposition to President Trump’s law enforcement surge in the nation’s capital, defense attorney Julia Gatto said during the trial’s opening statements.
“It was a harmless gesture at the end of him exercising his right to speak out,” Gatto said. “He is overwhelmingly not guilty.”
A bystander’s cellphone video of the confrontation went viral on social media, turning Dunn into a symbol of resistance against Trump’s months-long federal takeover. Murals depicting him mid-throw popped up in the city virtually overnight.
“He did it. He threw the sandwich,” Gatto told jurors. “And now the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has turned that moment — a thrown sandwich — into a criminal case, a federal criminal case charging a federal offense.”
A grand jury refused to indict Dunn on a felony assault count, part of a pattern of pushback against the Justice Department’s prosecution of surge-related criminal cases. After the rare rebuke from the grand jury, U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro’s office charged Dunn instead with a misdemeanor.
Customs and Border Protection Agent Gregory Lairmore, the government’s first witness, said the sandwich “exploded” when it struck his chest hard enough that he could feel it through his ballistic vest.
“You could smell the onions and the mustard,” he recalled.
Lairmore and other agents were standing in front of a club hosting a “Latin Night” when Dunn approached and shouted profanities at them, calling them “fascists” and “racists” and chanting “shame.”
“Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Dunn shouted, according to police.
Lairmore testified that he and the other agents tried to de-escalate the situation.
“He was red-faced. Enraged. Calling me and my colleagues all kinds of names,” he said. “I didn’t respond. That’s his constitutional right to express his opinion.”
After throwing the sandwich, Dunn ran away but was apprehended about a block away.
Later, Lairmore’s colleagues jokingly gave him gifts making light of the incident, including a subway sandwich-shaped plush toy and a patch that said “felony footlong.” Defense attorney Sabrina Schroff pointed to those as proof that the agents recognize this case is “overblown” and “worthy of a joke.”
Parron told jurors that everybody is entitled to their views about Trump’s federal surge. But “respectfully, that’s not what this case is about,” the prosecutor said. “You just can’t do what the defendant did here. He crossed a line.”
Dunn was a Justice Department employee who worked as an international affairs specialist in its criminal division. After Dunn’s arrest, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi announced his firing in a social media post that referred to him as “an example of the Deep State.”
Dunn was released from custody but rearrested when a team of armed federal agents in riot gear raided his home. The White House posted a highly produced “propaganda” video of the raid on its official X account, Dunn’s lawyers said.
Dunn’s lawyers have argued that the posts by Bondi and the White House show Dunn was impermissibly targeted for his political speech. They urged U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to dismiss the case, calling it a vindictive and selective prosecution. Nichols, who was nominated by Trump, didn’t rule on that request before the trial started Monday.
Dunn is charged with assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating and interfering with a federal officer. Dozens of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol were convicted of felonies for assaulting or interfering with police during the Jan. 6 attack. Trump pardoned or ordered the dismissal of charges for all of them.
FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Prosecutors, other attorneys and observers assembled in a federal courtroom Thursday for the start of opening statements in the trial of a man charged with trying to assassinate President Trump while he played golf in South Florida last year, when he was campaigning for a second term.
Ryan Routh is representing himself after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon agreed to let him dismiss his court-appointed attorneys. They are, however, standing by in the courtroom if needed.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and several firearm violations.
Until this week, Routh has appeared at hearings shackled at the wrists and ankles and dressed in a tan jail jumpsuit. But with jurors present, Routh has been unrestrained and dressed in a sport coat and tie. Cannon has said that Routh will be allowed to address jurors and witnesses from a podium, but he will not have free rein of the courtroom.
A panel of 12 jurors and four alternates was sworn in Wednesday, at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Fla. There are four white men, one Black man, six white women, and one Black woman on the jury, and the alternates are two white men and two white women. The panel was selected from a pool of 180 potential jurors.
The trial begins nearly a year after prosecutors say a Secret Service agent thwarted his attempt to shoot the Republican presidential nominee. It’s expected to run two or three weeks. The trial’s start comes as police search for the gunman who killed conservative influencer Charlie Kirk at a campus in Utah on Wednesday in what political leaders are calling an assassination.
Prosecutors have said Routh, 59, methodically plotted for weeks to kill Trump before aiming a rifle through the shrubbery as Trump played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club. A Secret Service agent spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Officials said Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and flee without firing a shot.
Just nine weeks earlier, Trump had survived another attempt on his life while campaigning in Pennsylvania. That gunman had fired eight shots, with one bullet grazing Trump’s ear, before being shot by a Secret Service counter sniper.
Cannon is a Trump-appointed judge who drew scrutiny for her handling of a criminal case accusing Trump of illegally storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. The case became mired in delays as motions piled up over months, and was ultimately dismissed by Cannon last year after she concluded that the special counsel tapped by the Justice Department to investigate Trump was illegally appointed.
Routh was a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years had moved to Hawaii. A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh spoke out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world, witnesses have told the Associated Press.
In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Routh tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan to fight the Russians. In his native Greensboro, N.C., he was arrested in 2002 on suspicion of eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers with a fully automatic machine gun and a “weapon of mass destruction,” which turned out to be an explosive with a 10-inch fuse.
Cardi B will only address pregnancy rumors on her own time. She made that abundantly clear with a pen and scathing words — both directed to one brash and curious man.
The Grammy-winning rapper was seen on camera hurling a pen at the man in the press pool as she left an Alhambra courthouse during the lunch break of her civil assault trial. According to footage shared by ABC7 and TMZ, the man speaks up from the press pool asking Cardi B about her relationships with ex-husband Offset and boyfriend Stefon Diggs.
“Insiders are claiming that Offset is publicly bragging about getting you pregnant for the fourth time,” he says. “Do you foresee any paternity issues with Stefon Diggs?”
As he poses the question, Cardi walks over to another individual holding a pen and waiting for her autograph. She takes the pen from his hand and throws it in the direction of the inquirer. “Stop disrespecting me,” she fires back, before her team surrounds her.
“Don’t disrespect me,” she adds.
Cardi B shares three young children with Offset. They married in 2017 and went their separate ways in 2024. They were previously headed for divorce in 2020, but seemingly made amends. She went official with NFL star Diggs earlier this year. It’s unclear how exactly the pregnancy rumors began.
After the heated exchange on Tuesday, the man tells Cardi B, “I still love you even though you just threw some stuff at me.”
She did not share the same feelings.
“I don’t care. You’re disrespectful, don’t do that. Do you see women asking those types of questions to me?” Cardi B said as she walked to her SUV. “Why do you feel, as a man, you get to ask me those types of questions? Act like you have some manners. And your mama taught you, respect women.”
She imparted a final message to the press from the vehicle: “You’re not going to see me out today, and you can thank him. I’m not playing around. I was very nice. I was very kind.”
The 32-year-old “Bodak Yellow” and “WAP” hip-hop star prevailed Tuesday in a civil lawsuit brought against her by a Beverly Hills security guard after two days of testimony. Emani Ellis sued Cardi B for $24 million, accusing her of assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress in the aftermath of a confrontation in a hallway outside of an obstetrician’s office. Ellis claimed that the rapper scratched her with a long nail extension, leaving a facial scar.
Cardi B was found not liable on all counts by jurors after less than an hour of deliberations.
“I swear to God, I will say it on my deathbed, I did not touch that woman,” Cardi B said outside the courthouse following the conclusion of the trial. She added that she had missed her kids’ first day of school because of the civil trial.
“I want to thank my lawyers,” she said. “I want to thank the jurors, I want to thank the judge, and I want to thank the respectful press.”
Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.
Jurors have reached a verdict on four of five counts against music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is on trial in a New York federal courtroom, accused of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation for prostitution.
The jury sent a note to the trial judge Tuesday afternoon stating they’d reached a verdict on several counts but were unable to reach a consensus on count one — racketeering. They will continue deliberating on that count in Manhattan starting Wednesday at 9 a.m.
Combs, 55, is charged under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as RICO, which requires a defendant to be part of an enterprise involved in at least two overt criminal acts out of 35 offenses listed by the government.
He is also charged on two counts each of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution in connection with two women — his former girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and a woman identified in court only as Jane, also a former girlfriend.
The jury has reached a unanimous verdict on the four counts tied to Ventura and Jane but not on the racketeering count. Their verdict is not yet known. As Tuesday’s deliberations concluded, Combs was seen praying in the courtroom and looking morose, according to the Associated Press.
The impending verdicts are the culmination of a celebrity legal drama that has generated global attention and offered a graphic and often violent glimpse into the life of one of the nation’s most powerful music figures and his near billion-dollar enterprise. Jurors heard from three women, two former girlfriends and a personal assistant, who described mob-family-style racketeering with coercion, kidnapping, threats and beatings done to cover up a pattern of sexual assaults, sex trafficking and prostitution over decades.
During the seven-week trial, prosecutors portrayed Combs and his associates as luring female victims, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship. Once he had gained their interest, Combs allegedly used force, threats of force, coercion and controlled substances to get them to engage in sex acts with male prostitutes while he occasionally watched in gatherings that Combs referred to as “freak-offs.”
On the stand, witnesses testified that Combs gave the women ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to “keep them obedient and compliant” during the performances.
Jurors deliberated for more than 12 hours before reaching verdicts on several of the counts against Combs.
The racketeering charge alleged Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment was like a mob family and criminal enterprise that threatened and abused women and utilized members of his enterprise to engage in a litany of crimes over the years including kidnapping, sex trafficking, bribery, arson, forced labor and obstruction of justice.
Though RICO cases are more typically associated with the mafia, street gangs or drug cartels, any loose association of two or more people is enough, like Combs’ entourage, said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahami. Prosecutors during the trial aimed to demonstrate a pattern of racketeering or two or more RICO predicate acts that occurred over 10 years. That’s why the evidence of bribery, kidnapping, obstruction, witness tampering and prostitution became key to the case.
Key to the government’s case was the testimony of three women: Combs’ onetime lover Ventura, whose 2023 lawsuit set off the unraveling of Combs’ enterprise and reputation; his most recent ex-girfriend, Jane; and his former assistant, only identified in court as Mia.
In the trial, Ventura testified she felt “trapped” in a cycle of physical and sexual abuse by Combs, and that the relationship involved years of beatings, sexual blackmail and a rape.
She claimed Combs threatened to leak videos of her sexual encounters with numerous male sex workers while drug-intoxicated and covered with baby oil as he watched and orchestrated the freak-offs.
One of those freak-offs led to an infamous hotel beating that was captured on hotel security cameras. Video footage from that March 2016 night shows Combs punching and kicking Ventura as she cowers and tries to protect herself in front of an L.A. hotel elevator bank. He then drags her down the hall by her hooded sweatshirt toward their hotel room.
A second angle from another camera captures Combs throwing a vase toward her. She suffered bruising to her eye, a fat lip and a bruise that prosecutors showed was still visible during a movie premiere two days later, where she wore sunglasses and heavy makeup on the red carpet.
In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Atty. Christy Slavik told jurors Combs “counted on silence and shame” to enable and prolong his abuse and used a “small army” of employees to harm women and cover it up, according to the Associated Press.
Combs, he said, “doesn’t take no for an answer.”
When it came time for Combs’ defense team to present their case, they opted to move straight to closing arguments without presenting a witness. Rahami, the former federal prosecutor, said the defense expected jurors would question why those on the stand did not report the behavior to authorities at the time it was occurring and, in some cases, chose to stay in Combs’ orbit.
Marc Agnifilo, one of Combs’ lawyers, told jurors in closing that federal prosecutors “exaggerated” their case and sought to turn the hip-hop mogul’s swinger lifestyle into the most serious of federal offenses — racketeering and sex trafficking, without the evidence to back it up. In reality, Combs has a drug problem and his relationship with Ventura was a “modern love story” where the mogul “owns the domestic violence” that was revealed in the trial, Agnifilo said.
NEW YORK — Sean “Diddy” Combs’ one-time personal assistant testified Wednesday that he was in charge of cleaning up hotel rooms after the hip-hop mogul’s sex marathons — tossing out empty alcohol bottles, baby oil and drugs, tidying pillows and making it look as if nothing had happened.
Implied in the job was that “protecting him and protecting his public image were important to him,” George Kaplan told jurors at Combs’ sex trafficking trial in federal court in Manhattan.
“That’s what I was keen on doing,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan, who worked for Combs from 2013 to 2015, said the Bad Boy Records founder would sometimes summon him to a hotel room to deliver a “medicine kit,” a bag full of prescription pills and over-the-counter pain medications. He said Combs also dispatched him to buy drugs, including MDMA, also known as ecstasy.
Kaplan, 34, was granted immunity to testify after initially telling the court that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Prosecutors contend Combs leaned on employees and used his music and fashion empire to facilitate and cover up his behavior, sometimes making threats to keep them in line and his misconduct hush-hush.
Kaplan testified that Combs threatened his job on a monthly basis, once berating him for buying the wrong size bottled water. Combs’ longtime girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, testified that Kaplan quit after seeing Combs beat her.
Kaplan’s testimony resumes Thursday. He’ll be followed by rapper and actor Kid Cudi.
Cudi, whose legal name is Scott Mescudi, is expected to testify about his brief relationship with Cassie in 2011. Prosecutors say Combs was so upset that he arranged to have Cudi’s convertible firebombed.
Also Wednesday, a federal agent showed jurors two handguns he said were found in a March 2024 raid at Combs’ Miami-area home, along with photos of ammunition and a wooden box marked “Puffy” — one of his nicknames — that the agent said contained psilocybin, MDMA and other drugs.
Investigators also found items prosecutors say were hallmarks of “freak-offs,” including dozens of bottles of baby oil and lubricant, said Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Gerard Gannon.
Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos suggested the search — which involved 80 to 90 agents, an armored vehicle smashing the security gate, handcuffed employees and boat patrols — was overkill. Combs’ Los Angeles mansion was also searched.
Gannon confirmed the federal investigation began the day after Cassie filed a lawsuit in November 2023 alleging that Combs abused her for years and involved her in hundreds of “freak-offs” with him and male sex workers. He soon settled for $20 million, she said.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges alleging he leveraged his fame and fortune to control Cassie and other people through threats and violence. His lawyers say the evidence reflects domestic violence, not racketeering or sex trafficking.
Jurors also heard from a psychologist who delved into the complexities of abusive relationships. Dawn Hughes explained victims often experience a “low sense of self” and tend to stay with abusers because they yearn for love and compassion they experienced in a relationship’s early “honeymoon phase.”
Hughes also explained how a victim’s memory can sometimes become jumbled — retaining awareness of abuse, but mixing up details. Hughes, who was paid $6,000 by the prosecution to testify, didn’t examine or mention Cassie or Combs, but her testimony paralleled some of what Cassie said she experienced with him.
Cassie testified that she started dating Cudi in late 2011. Although she and Combs broke up, they still engaged in “freak-offs,” she said. It was during such an encounter that Combs looked at her phone and figured out she was seeing Cudi, Cassie said.
Cassie’s mother, Regina Ventura, testified Tuesday that Cassie emailed her in December 2011 that Combs was so angry about the relationship that he planned to release explicit videos of her and have someone hurt Cassie and Cudi. Regina Ventura said she Combs also demanded $20,000. Scared for her daughter’s safety, she said she sent Combs the money, only to have it returned by Combs days later.
Cassie testified that she broke up with Cudi before the end of the year.
“It was just too much,” she said. “Too much danger, too much uncertainty of, like, what could happen if we continued to see each other.”
After Cassie reunited with Combs, he told her that Cudi’s car would be blown up and that he wanted Cudi’s friends there to see it, Cassie said.
Sisak and Neumeister write for the Associated Press. AP reporter Julie Walker contributed to this report.
She already felt “trapped” in a cycle of physical and sexual abuse by him, she told a New York federal jury this week, outlining 11 years of alleged beatings, sexual blackmail and a rape.
She claimed Combs threatened to leak videos of her sexual encounters with numerous male sex workers while drug-intoxicated and glistening with baby oil as he watched and orchestrated the events, known as freak-offs.
“If I pleased him with a freak-off, then my premiere would run smoothly,” she said, according to reporting from inside the Manhattan courtroom from the Associated Press.
What happened next could end up being the beginning of the end of Combs’ public life.
Video footage from that March 2016 night shows Combs punching and kicking Ventura as she cowers and tries to protect herself in front of an L.A. hotel elevator bank. He then drags her down the hall by her hooded sweatshirt toward their hotel room. A second angle from another camera captures Combs throwing a vase toward her. She suffered bruising to her eye, a fat lip, and a bruise that prosecutors showed was still visible during the movie premiere two days later. She donned sunglasses and heavy makeup on the red carpet.
Ventura’s testimony is at the center of the federal trial accusing Combs of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation for prostitution.
Sweeping allegations
The federal indictment alleges that Combs and his associates lured female victims, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship. Combs then allegedly used force, threats of force, coercion and controlled substances to get women to engage in sex acts with male prostitutes while he occasionally watched in gatherings that Combs referred to as “freak-offs.” Combs gave the women ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to “keep them obedient and compliant” during the performances.
The freak-offs, which prosecutors say sometimes lasted for days, were elaborately produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often recorded, according to the indictment. Prosecutors allege in a detention memo filed in court that the freak-offs occurred regularly from at least 2009 through 2023 and that the hotel rooms where they were staged often sustained significant damage.
Combs’ alleged “criminal enterprise” threatened and abused women and utilized members of his enterprise to engage in sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution, coercion and enticement to engage in prostitution, narcotics offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice, prosecutors said. In bringing so-called RICO charges, prosecutors in opening statements said Combs was helped by cadre of company employees, security staff and aides. They allegedly helped organize the crime and “freak-offs” and then covered up the incidents. Thus far, Combs is the only one facing criminal charges related to the investigation.
Combs’ attorney this week said her client was far from perfect but that the charges were overblown.
“Sean Combs is a complicated man. But this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money,” Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos told jurors. “There has been a tremendous amount of noise around this case over the past year. It is time to cancel that noise.”
How Ventura and Combs met
Jurors heard that Ventura was 19 when she met the 37-year-old Combs in 2005, and she signed a 10-year contract with his Bad Boy Records label. About two years later, he had Britney Spears come to her 21st birthday party, where Ventura and Combs kissed and their relationship began, she said. She testified that the freak-offs became a way of life, and she even stepped away from her own birthday party for one.
Cassie Ventura, left, and Sean “Diddy” Combs arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story” at the Writers Guild Theater on June 21, 2017, in Beverly Hills.
(Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP)
Combs, she told jurors, required her to let a male sex worker urinate in her mouth. That man and others were paid thousands of dollars to have sex repeatedly for 36 to 48 hours, she told the jury.
On the stand, Ventura identified 13 male sex workers through photos presented by prosecutors that she said Combs’ had her recruit for the freak-offs. Hers and Combs’ relationship would end on a day in 2018 when she met him for dinner and he raped her on her living room floor, she testified.
Violence
During four days of testimony, Ventura, who is eight and a half months pregnant, described being raped, beaten at least six times, most severely in 2009.
In the 2009 attack, she testified that Combs was “stomping” on her face after he discovered she was dating rapper Kid Cudi. Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, had his car torched a short time afterward. Prosecutors allege in court papers that Combs ordered it.
Legal analysis
Legal experts say the testimony is designed to build the federal case against Combs, even if on the surface it does not appear directly related to the charges he’s facing.
“Why is the government talking about rape and assault when the charges are RICO and sex trafficking?” said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani. Well, he said, “what separates sex trafficking from consensual sex between adults — which the defense is arguing — is force, fraud or coercion.”
“Ventura’s testimony that she was given drugs to the point of throwing up … and forced to have sex when she was menstruating or had a UTI is evidence of coercion,” he said.
Rahmani said that Ventura’s portrayal of Combs as a gun-brandishing mogul who beat her on multiple occasions, tracked her movements and sent a security team to find her is evidence of force.
Then there were the alleged threats. She recounted that during a commercial flight in 2013, Combs pulled out his laptop and began playing a freak-off recording as they sat together. She said Combs told her that he was going to embarrass her and release them.
“I feared for my career. I feared for my family. It’s just embarrassing. It’s horrible and disgusting. No one should do that to anyone,” Ventura said.
Authorities raid Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Los Angeles home as part of an ongoing sex trafficking investigation
(Eric Thayer / Associated Press)
Rahmani said the racketeering charge against Combs requires prosecutors to prove the existence of a criminal enterprise.
“People typically think of the mob, street gangs, or drug cartels, but any loose association of two or more people is enough like Combs’ entourage,” the former federal prosecutor said. They must show two or more predicate acts over 10 years.
“That is why the evidence of bribery, kidnapping, obstruction, witness tampering and prostitution is important,” he said.
LAPD officer testimony
Israel Florez, a hotel security guard who confronted Combs in 2016, now a Los Angeles Police officer, testified Combs flashed a bundle of cash at him — something he believed was an attempted bribe. He rejected it, he said.
Combs’ defense is seeking to paint Ventura as participating in the behavior, recruiting and paying sex partners, acquiring narcotics and texting to push for freak-offs that were part of a swingers’ lifestyle. She is one of four alleged victims in the case, with jurors expected to hear from at least three of them.
On Thursday, defense attorney Anne Estevao had Ventura read a series of loving texts to Combs and got Ventura to testify she’d watched Combs have sex with another woman on multiple occasions. To support the swingers’ defense, the lawyer produced a 2009 text where the singer declared, “I’m always ready to freak off.”
Ventura sued Combs in the fall of 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse, triggering a cascade of lawsuits and allegations by others who say they’re victims of Combs and eventually, a raid by Homeland Security on his L.A. and Miami homes and his arrest. Ventura acknowledged Wednesday that she got a $20-million settlement within days of filing her lawsuit.
Combs attorney pushes back
During opening statements in a Manhattan federal courtroom, Geragos, one of Combs’ defense attorneys, drew a distinction for jurors between the violence they would hear testimony about and the charges Combs was facing, saying “domestic violence is not sex trafficking.”
She said the video of Ventura’s assault in the hotel was indefensible, but that the singer “made a choice” to stay with Combs for 11 years.
After the attack, a friend called police to Ventura’s home, she testified. But when officers arrived, she did not identify Combs as the culprit.
The prosecutor asked her why she did not talk. “In that moment, I didn’t want to hurt him that way. I wasn’t ready,” she replied.
On Thursday, the defense cross-examining Ventura sought to change the narrative using dozens of text messages between Combs and Ventura. In a July 2013 text message exchange, Comb’s defense lawyer noted that Cassie raised the idea of having a “freak-off,” writing to Combs: “Wish we could’ve FO’d before you left.”
Using the text message exchanges, the defense lawyer highlighted Ventura’s admitted jealousy over the attention he gave other women.
“You’re making me look like a side piece and that is not what I thought I was,” Cassie told Combs in a 2013 text message.
Estevao tried to recast the hotel incident as the result of the two taking a “bad batch” of the psychedelic stimulant MDMA during a “freak-off” before the hotel beating.
During her testimony this week, Ventura testified that Combs allegedly overdosed on opioids while partying at the Playboy Mansion in 2012. While she wasn’t there, she said, he told her about it.
Ventura’s testimony ended on Friday.
The Associated Press contributed court testimony for this analysis.
NEW YORK — R&B singer Cassie was forced under cross-examination Thursday to read aloud explicit messages with her former boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs, some of which expressed enthusiasm for sex with other men at Combs’ behest that she previously testified she “hated doing.”
Lawyers for Combs are seeking to show the jury that Cassie was a willing participant in his sexual lifestyle and say that, while he could be violent, nothing he did amounted to a criminal enterprise. Combs has pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
Prosecutors say he exploited his status as a powerful music executive to violently force Cassie and other women to take part in these drug-fueled encounters with sex workers, called “freak-offs,” which sometimes lasted days. He’s also accused of using his entourage and employees to facilitate illegal activities, including prostitution-related transportation and coercion, which is a key element of the federal charges.
Messages between Combs and Cassie — both romantic and lurid — were the focus of the fourth day of testimony in a Manhattan courtroom. Defense attorney Anna Estevao read what Combs wrote, while Cassie recited her own messages.
Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, read messages to Combs containing graphic details about what she wanted to do during the freak-offs. At one point, she asked for a short break from the readings, which Judge Arun Subramanian granted.
In August 2009, Combs asked when she wanted the next encounter to be, and she replied “I’m always ready to freak off.” Two days later, Cassie sent an explicit message and he replied in eager anticipation. She responded: “Me Too, I just want it to be uncontrollable.” Combs’ lawyers have insisted that all the sex at the freak-offs was consensual.
Later that year, however, she also sent Combs messages that she was frustrated with the state of their relationship and needed something more from him than sex.
While reading their more affectionate conversations, Cassie testified that Combs was charismatic, a larger-than-life personality.
“I had fallen in love with him and cared about him very much,” Cassie said. Estevao spoke gently during the cross-examination, which had such a friendly tone at times that the lawyer and witness seemed like two friends chatting.
Cassie, however, did complain once that jurors weren’t hearing the full context of the messages the defense was highlighting, saying, “There’s a lot we skipped over.”
A packed courtroom watches Cassie’s testimony
As the messages were read, Combs appeared relaxed at the defense table, sitting back with his hands folded and his legs crossed. The courtroom was packed with family and friends of Combs, journalists, and a row of spectator seats occupied by Cassie’s supporters including her husband.
The 38-year-old Cassie — who is in the third trimester of pregnancy with her third child — has been composed on the witness stand. She cried several times during the previous two days of questions by the prosecution, but for the most part has remained matter-of-fact as she spoke about the most sensitive subjects.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie has.
During a break, Combs stood at the defense table, huddling with his lawyers, holding a pack of Post-It notes in one hand and a pen in the other. At one point, he turned to the gallery and acknowledged a few reporters who were studying his demeanor. “How you doing?” he asked.
Combs’ daughters were not in the courtroom Thursday as the explicit messages were read and shown to the jury.
Jurors leaned forward in their seats to follow along as the messages were displayed on monitors in front of them in the jury box. One woman shook her head as a particularly explicit message was shown. A man stared intently at the screen, pressing his thumb to his chin. Other jurors appeared curious and quizzical, some looking at Cassie or jotting notes.
Cassie rejects ‘swingers’ label
Cassie’s testimony on cross-examination was in contrast to Wednesday, when she described the violence and shame that accompanied her “hundreds” of encounters with male sex workers during her relationship with Combs, which lasted from 2007 to 2018.
While prosecutors have focused on Combs’ desire to see Cassie having sex with other men, she testified that she sometimes watched Combs have sex with other women. She said Combs described it as part of a “swingers lifestyle.”
Estevao asked Cassie directly whether she thought freak-offs were related to that lifestyle.
“In a sexual way,” Cassie responded, before adding: “They’re very different.”
Cassie said Tuesday that Combs was obsessed with a form of voyeurism where “he was controlling the whole situation.” The freak-offs took place in private, often in dark hotel rooms, unlike Combs’ very public parties that attracted A-list celebrities.
She testified she sometimes took IV fluids to recover from the encounters, and eventually developed an opioid addiction because it made her “feel numb” afterward.
When questioned by Estevao, Cassie agreed that Combs once communicated to drug dealers in Los Angeles to stop delivering drugs to her, and he suggested she get treatment. Cassie said Combs wanted her to do drugs with him only, not friends.
Cassie’s lawsuit sparked case against Combs
Cassie testified Wednesday that Combs raped her when she broke up with him in 2018, and had locked in a life of abuse by threatening to release videos of her during the freak-offs.
She sued Combs in 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. Within hours, the suit was settled for $20 million — a figure Cassie disclosed for the first time Wednesday — but dozens of similar legal claims followed from other women. It also touched off a law enforcement investigation into Combs that has culminated in this trial.
Combs, 55, has been jailed since September. He faces at least 15 years in prison if convicted.
Sisak and Neumeister write for the Associated Press. The AP’s Julie Walker in New York and Dave Collins in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.
