{"id":49066,"date":"2025-05-14T09:36:19","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T13:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/live-updates-cassie-to-testify-about-hotel-clash-with-sean-combs-during-sex-trafficking-trial\/14\/05\/2025\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T09:36:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T13:36:19","slug":"live-updates-cassie-to-testify-about-hotel-clash-with-sean-combs-during-sex-trafficking-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/live-updates-cassie-to-testify-about-hotel-clash-with-sean-combs-during-sex-trafficking-trial\/14\/05\/2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Updates: Cassie to Testify About Hotel Clash With Sean Combs During Sex-Trafficking Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

The second day of the Sean Combs trial ended in the middle of testimony from Casandra Ventura<\/a>, his longtime on-and-off girlfriend and the prosecution\u2019s star witness, as she described his brutal assault of her in the hallway of a hotel in Los Angeles in 2016.<\/p>\n

Footage of the beating, caught on hotel surveillance cameras, has already been widely viewed by the public after CNN published the footage last year<\/a>. But the testimony in Federal District Court in Manhattan, which Ms. Ventura will continue on Wednesday, is the first time she has given a detailed account of the events that day.<\/p>\n

\n

In early March 2016, she testified on Tuesday, she was preparing for her first big movie premiere \u2014 a romantic comedy called \u201cThe Perfect Match<\/a>\u201d in which she had a starring role. A couple of days before the premiere, she said, Mr. Combs asked her to participate in a freak-off, a drug-fueled sex marathon involving male escorts that she said had grown to define their relationship.<\/p>\n

Ms. Ventura testified that freak-offs could last for several days and would require periods of recovery from drugs and sleep deprivation. She said she was worried about how participating in a freak-off would affect the movie premiere but agreed anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I pleased him with a freak-off, then my premiere would run smoothly,\u201d she testified. \u201cThat\u2019s how I looked at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She texted Mr. Combs: \u201cI don\u2019t want you thinking I don\u2019t want to.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the InterContinental Century City hotel in Los Angeles, the couple was in between sessions of a freak-off involving an escort when Mr. Combs hit her in the face, Ms. Ventura testified. \u201cI\u2019m not sure what happened, but I got hit by Sean and I had a black eye,\u201d Ms. Ventura said on the witness stand. \u201cAnd at that point, all I could think about was getting out of there safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Mr. Combs was distracted, she testified, she grabbed her belongings and left the hotel room barefoot and reached the sixth-floor elevator bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the next thing I knew, I was just thrown to the ground,\u201d Ms. Ventura said.<\/p>\n

The jury then watched the footage of Mr. Combs, who was wearing a towel around his waist, grabbing Ms. Ventura by the back of the hoodie she was wearing and throwing her to the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many times had Sean thrown you to the ground like that before?,\u201d asked Emily A. Johnson, the prosecutor who was questioning Ms. Ventura.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many to count,\u201d she replied. \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her voice measured and matter-of-fact, Ms. Ventura walked the courtroom through more of the footage, describing how Mr. Combs started to drag her around the corner of the hotel hallway and then took her purse and overnight bag back to their hotel room.<\/p>\n

To convict Mr. Combs of sex-trafficking Ms. Ventura, the jury needs to find that he used force, fraud or coercion to secure her participation in freak-offs. The government is using the footage of the assault to show the jury that there was violence in the context of that March 2016 freak-off.<\/p>\n

Mr. Combs\u2019s lawyers have previously said that the assault was precipitated by Ms. Ventura\u2019s discovering evidence of infidelity on Mr. Combs\u2019s phone. They said she hit him in the head while he was sleeping and then left with a bag of his clothes.<\/p>\n

In the defense\u2019s opening statement this week, one of Mr. Combs\u2019s lawyers, Teny Geragos, asked jurors to pay close attention to a part of the footage in which Mr. Combs approaches Ms. Ventura and appears to take a phone from her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted this phone and he got it,\u201d Ms. Geragos said.<\/p>\n

When Ms. Ventura is cross-examined by a lawyer for Mr. Combs \u2014 which could happen as early as Wednesday \u2014 the defense will most likely press her on the motivation for the assault: Was he dragging her back to the hotel room to continue the freak-off, or did his behavior amount to a violent outburst over a missing phone?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Combs did to Cassie on this videotape is indefensible \u2014 it is horrible, it\u2019s dehumanizing, it\u2019s violent, it\u2019s virtually every bad word you can think of,\u201d Ms. Geragos said in her opening statement. \u201cAnd while it is dehumanizing and violent and terrible, the second most important thing is that it is not evidence of sex trafficking. It is evidence of domestic violence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The second day of the Sean Combs trial ended in the middle of testimony from Casandra Ventura, his longtime on-and-off girlfriend and