Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial updates: Cassie Ventura breaks down as testimony concludes

The hip-hop mogul is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.

Last Updated: May 19, 2025, 9:00 AM EDT

This story may contain accounts and descriptions of actual or alleged events that some readers may find disturbing.

Friday is day five in the trial of Sean Combs after the jury was seated.

May 13, 2025, 10:11 am

Sean Combs trial underway

The highly anticipated trial of hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs is underway. Combs has been accused of sex trafficking by force, transportation to engage in prostitution, and racketeering conspiracy as part of a blockbuster federal indictment originally filed in September 2024. He later faced two additional superseding indictments. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

Combs is accused of being the ringleader of an alleged enterprise that "abused, threatened and coerced women" into prolonged, drug-fueled sexual orgies with male prostitutes, which he called "freak offs," and then threatened them into silence. Combs has said that all of the sex was consensual and that while his relationships sometimes involved domestic violence, he wasn't engaged in trafficking.

Combs' lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said Combs was simply part of the swinger lifestyle and that he "vehemently denies the accusations made by the SDNY" and "looks forward to his day in court."

May 13, 2025, 12:12 PM EDT

Cassie Ventura describes participating in 'freak offs' to please Combs

Cassie Ventura testified that she did not remember how the term “freak off” came about but she recalled Sean Combs proposed “this sexual encounter, that he called voyeurism, where he would watch me in intercourse, sexual activity with another man” within the first year of their relationship.

“I just remember my stomach falling, just the nervousness. I think I was 22 at the time, I didn’t have a concept to how that would be a turn-on but I also felt a sense of responsibility, him sharing that with me,” Ventura testified. “I wanted to make him happy.”

In soft-spoken, sometimes halting testimony interrupted by deep breaths, Ventura said the freak offs occurred so often that “eventually it became a job for me” to set them up.

After the first one, Ventura said her willingness to participate changed.

“Pretty quickly over time I knew it wasn’t something I wanted to be doing, especially how frequently. But I was in love and wanting to make him happy,” Ventura said. "I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice, didn’t really know what 'no' could turn into.”

Ventura alleged violent arguments with Combs that she said “would usually result in some physical abuse.”

“He would bash my head, knock me over, drag me, kick me, stomp me in the head when I was down,” Ventura testified.

“How frequently was Sean physical with you during your relationship?” prosecutor Emily Johnson asked.

“Too frequently,” Ventura responded.

May 13, 2025, 11:19 AM EDT

Prosecution calls Cassie Ventura to testify against ex-boyfriend Sean Combs

Cassie Ventura took the witness stand Tuesday to testify against her ex-boyfriend, Sean Combs, at his racketeering and sex trafficking trial.

“The government calls Cassandra Ventura,” prosecutor Emily Johnson said.

Ventura, 38, who is pregnant, entered the courtroom.

Federal prosecutors said Combs used lies, drugs, threats and violence to force and coerce Ventura into having sexual encounters with male prostitutes.

This is the first time Ventura and Combs are seeing one another in person since their 2018 split, the defense said yesterday.

Defense attorney Teny Geragos said during opening statements that Ventura broke off her relationship with Combs after she heard him call Kim Porter his soulmate at Porter’s funeral.

“When Combs publicly said Kim Porter was his soulmate to all the people around him who were there, for the first time maybe ever, Cassie realized all the things she would not be,” Geragos said.

May 13, 2025, 11:05 AM EDT

Cassie Ventura takes the stand

Sean Combs' ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura has taken the stand to testify in the trial against the music mogul.

May 13, 2025, 11:00 AM EDT

Defense questions male escort's account of Combs attacking Cassie Ventura

After male escort Daniel Phillip told the jury Monday that he saw “Sean Combs hit Cassie,” a defense attorney today questioned whether he embellished the account to make Combs seem more callous.

Phillip testified that after a sexual encounter at Ventura’s residence, Combs threw a bottle toward her and “grabbed her by her hair and dragged her by her hair into the bedroom” after she did not immediately get up from a computer to go into the bedroom as he instructed. Phillip said Combs emerged from the bedroom a while later to ask Phillip, “Are you guys ready to continue?”

On cross-examination today, defense attorney Xavier Donaldson questioned whether Combs said something else.

“Isn’t it true he said, ‘You got to get out of here?’” Donaldson asked.

“I don’t recall that,” Phillip responded.

“’Yo man, I’m going to have to deal with this you need to get the f--- out?’” Donaldson quoted Combs as saying.

When Phillip responded that was not what Combs said, Donaldson confronted him with a December 2023 law enforcement report from an interview agents conducted with Phillip.

“Mr. Combs told you ‘Yo man, get the f--- out,’” Donaldson insisted.

“I do not recall that,” Phillip replied. “I do not remember saying that.”

On re-direct examination by the prosecution, Phillip sought to clarify his statement.

“I recall him coming out of the room and trying to get us to have sex again,” Phillip said. “I just recall him asking us if we’re ready to go.”

“And what did you understand that to mean?” prosecutor Maureen Comey asked.

“If we’re ready to have sex again,” Phillip answered.

“I was completely shocked and messed up in my head,” Phillips said, at which point, he said, Combs told him to leave.

“Is Sean Combs the same man who threw a liquor bottle across the room when Ms. Ventura told him to wait a minute?” Comey asked.

“Yes,” Phillip responded.

Related Topics

Sponsored Content by Taboola