Aurelia Butler

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    Cassie Confronted by Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Lawyer Over ‘Freak-Offs’ During Trial

    During cross-examination, the defense team depicted Casandra Ventura as fully engaged in staging and participating in the marathon sex sessions she says were abusive.Lawyers for Sean Combs worked on Thursday in court to portray his former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, as a willing and full participant in sex marathons with prostitutes, as they sought to undermine her harrowing account of an abusive, coercive relationship riddled with violence.Ms. Ventura’s credibility is central to the government’s case, in which they have charged Mr. Combs, the music mogul, with sex trafficking and racketeering. Earlier this week she told the jury of eight men and four women of how she had suffered through hundreds of degrading sexual encounters and many injuries out of a misguided attempt to please a man she loved.But on the fourth day of Mr. Combs’s trial, the defense tried to recast Ms. Ventura, a singer known professionally as Cassie, as not nearly the victim she had portrayed herself to be. During cross-examination, Anna Estevao, one of Mr. Combs’s lawyers, repeatedly had her read text messages in which she expressed graphic enthusiasm for their sexual encounters, including the now famed “freak-offs” involving paid escorts.“I’m always ready to freak off lolol,” Ms. Ventura said in a message from 2009.In another exchange from around the same time, Ms. Ventura expressed her excitement in graphically sexual terms, and he told her: “I can’t wait to watch you. I want you to get real hott.”She answered: “Me too. I just want it to be uncontrollable.”Jurors gazed at the barrage of text messages, which were displayed on screens in front of them, sometimes leaning forward to get a closer look.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges and his defense has argued that the government is trying to criminalize unconventional, but lawful, sexual relations between consenting adults. In her first two days on the stand, Ms. Ventura said that she might have feigned interest at times to avoid Mr. Combs’s anger, and she recited a litany of incidents in which she was beaten when she failed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Key Moments in the Fourth Day of the Sean Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial

    In its cross-examination on Thursday of Casandra Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, Sean Combs’s defense team confronted her about dozens of messages between them, many explicit. His lawyers are hoping those communications will show that Ms. Ventura was a loving partner and an enthusiastic participant in the marathon sex sessions with prostitutes that Mr. Combs called “freak-offs.”Ms. Ventura is expected to return to the stand for the final time on Friday. Here are four takeaways from her third day of testimony:For the defense, confronting Ms. Ventura was a balancing act.Given the beatings she had suffered at the hands of Mr. Combs and the fact that Ms. Ventura is nearly nine months pregnant, the tone of its cross-examination was an important consideration for the defense team. The judge alluded to Ms. Ventura’s pregnancy at one point while expressing frustration with the defense when it suggested its questioning of her might extend past this week.Nonetheless, Anna Estevao, one of Mr. Combs’s lawyers, started out briskly. She skipped any extended pleasantries to the witness and jumped right into questions designed to suggest that Ms. Ventura had been a more willing, even enthusiastic, participant in the freak-offs than she had acknowledged in her direct testimony.But Ms. Estevao’s confrontations never came close to the aggression that is often seen from defense lawyers cross-examining a star witness. She even shared a few laughs with Ms. Ventura, including one moment when she remarked how beautiful and charming the witness was. “Thank you,” Ms. Ventura replied.It was not all so diplomatic, though. Ms. Estevao spent much of the day in painstaking readings of text and email messages that Ms. Ventura had shared with Mr. Combs. During one tedious recitation, the witness bluntly asked, “Do you have any questions for me?”Explicit messages between the couple were a point of emphasis.Much of Ms. Ventura’s testimony on Thursday morning was spent discussing messages — many of them explicit — that she and Mr. Combs had sent during their decade-long relationship.“I can’t wait to stare,” Ms. Ventura wrote, adding a description of genitalia, in one 2009 conversation that was shared in court.“I can’t wait to watch you,” Mr. Combs responded. “I want you to get real hott.”“Me too,” she replied. “I just want it to be uncontrollable.”The defense appeared to be emphasizing the love and passion in the early stages of their relationship, citing flirtatious messages and those in which she seemed to express eagerness for freak-offs, offering to pick up supplies at a sex shop. “I’m always ready to freak off lolol,” Ms. Ventura wrote at one point.The messages also showed that, at certain times, Ms. Ventura expressed dissatisfaction with their arrangement. She testified that she had been jealous of Kim Porter, Mr. Combs’s longtime partner, and other women that he would start relationships with.“I get nervous that i’m just becoming the girlfriend that you get your fantasies off with and that’s it,” she wrote.How jurors view Ms. Ventura’s credibility will be crucial.Mr. Combs is charged with sex-trafficking Ms. Ventura, a crime that would require the government to prove that he forced or coerced her into sex parties with male prostitutes.Over her first two days on the stand, Ms. Ventura testified to years of physical violence and sexual coercion by Mr. Combs so severe that she considered suicide. In Thursday’s cross-examination, a defense lawyer focused on a different side of their relationship.Ms. Estevao asked Ms. Ventura about dozens of pages of text and email messages between the couple. The cross-examination also highlighted Ms. Ventura’s complex relationship with freak-offs: Outwardly, she sometimes expressed enthusiasm about the encounters to Mr. Combs, but inwardly, she testified, she had a deep aversion to them.It remains to be seen how the jury will ultimately view Ms. Ventura’s testimony.The defense sought to connect Mr. Combs’s behavior to his drug use.Much of the questioning from Mr. Combs’s defense team focused on drug use and abuse, and its potential influence on the behavior of both Mr. Combs and Ms. Ventura.Ms. Ventura said both she and Mr. Combs were dependent on opiates for most of their relationship, and that he did other drugs, including Ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine and GHB, in her presence.She testified that Mr. Combs overdosed on opiates in 2012, after they had gone to a sex club in the Los Angeles area and he then attended a party at the Playboy Mansion. She also said that both of them had tried to detox by using Ibogaine, a natural psychedelic, which they had obtained in Mexico; the treatment temporarily worked before relapses.Several times, Ms. Estevao asked questions about the symptoms of drug withdrawal, in a seeming attempt to connect Mr. Combs’s behavior and mood with his drug use and recovery.On Tuesday, Ms. Ventura had testified that she used drugs at freak-offs — Ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana, ketamine, mushrooms — to dissociate from the events. But under cross-examination, she also spoke about her drug use​ outside of these planned sexual encounters. Using drugs with people other than Mr. Combs made him jealous, she said​. ​She testified that an incident she described in her direct testimony — when Mr. Combs was angry at her during a trip to Cannes — was the result of him suspecting she had taken drugs from him without asking. A physical altercation with one of Ms. Ventura’s former friends was the result of Mr. Combs seeing drugs on a table that they had planned to take together.As testimony was wrapping for the day, Ms. Estevao questioned Ms. Ventura about the drugs ​s​he and Mr. Combs consumed at the freak-off related to the 2016 encounter where Mr. Combs was seen on surveillance footage assaulting her in a hotel hallway.“Do you recall the beginning of the freak-off session?” Ms. Estevao asked. Ms. Ventura said she did not, but guessed that she had taken MDMA or Ecstasy. Asked if it was a bad batch of drugs, Ms. Ventura said she had no idea. More

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    Springsteen, in England, Blasts Trump Administration as ‘Treasonous’

    His remarks, delivered to an audience abroad, stood out at a time when other superstar artists have seemed to mute their criticism of the president.Bruce Springsteen opened his “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour in Manchester, England, on Wednesday with a forceful denunciation of President Trump, accusing him and his administration of trampling on civil rights and workers, abandoning allies and siding with dictators.Even for an avowed liberal like Mr. Springsteen, it was a notably piercing broadside at a time when some artists have seemed to avoid directly confronting Mr. Trump as they did in 2017, after he took office the first time. Back then, many prominent performers and celebrities roundly denounced Mr. Trump at shows and rallies and on television.Appearing in Manchester, Mr. Springsteen, 75, criticized Mr. Trump in separate remarks before his songs “Land of Hope and Dreams,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” and “My City of Ruins.” He later posted a transcript of his comments on his website and a video of them on his YouTube channel.“The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock ’n’ roll, in dangerous times,” he said. “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”The crowd responded with cheers, and Mr. Springsteen went on to offer a litany of grievances about the administration, accusing it of “taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers.”“They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that has led to a more just and plural society,” he said. “They’re abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They’re defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands. They’re removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons. This is all happening now.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’ Review: The Weeknd’s Overextended Music Video

    A filmic companion to the Weeknd’s latest album, this meta psychological thriller is all style and no substance.Beneath the lurid adrenaline of the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” which Billboard classified as the No. 1 song of all time in 2021, is really a story of emptiness, explains Anima (Jenna Ortega). A superfan of the singer, she tells this to the Weeknd (a.k.a. Abel Tesfaye) himself — while his hands are bound to the bedposts in a hotel room.Like an acid-trip pop-star spin on Stephen King’s “Misery,” this sequence from “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” a filmic companion to Tesfaye’s latest album (supposedly his final one as the Weeknd), is in some ways the most apt manifestation of the story his music has always circled around: the devil’s bargain of fame, the hedonism that offers a fun-house portal to self-oblivion.But the film, directed by Trey Edward Shults, who wrote the screenplay with Tesfaye, primarily amounts to an overextended music video that shrinks and cheapens the universe that the Weeknd’s songs gesture toward. Tesfaye plays himself as a heartbroken superstar who exists in a seemingly perpetual bender alongside his best friend and manager, Lee (Barry Keoghan). After losing his voice onstage during a show (based on Tesfaye’s real experience), he finds solace in Anima, a mysterious girl in the crowd, whose obsession with him plunges him into a kind of ego-death horror show.This would all seem to make for a proper farewell to a musical identity that has always gravitated toward the darkly cinematic. It was in the alt-R&B sound he helped pioneer and the shadowy persona he cultivated; the conceptual trilogy of his latest three albums all featured a distinct protagonist traversing underworlds and afterlives (and, at one point, winding up with a bandaged nose à la Jack Nicholson’s private eye in “Chinatown”).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Smokey Robinson Faces Criminal Investigation After Assault Allegations

    The Motown legend, who was accused in a lawsuit earlier this month of sexually assaulting four former housekeepers, is being investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has opened a criminal investigation into the Motown legend Smokey Robinson, who was accused in a civil suit this month of sexually assaulting four women, the department said Thursday.Mr. Robinson, 85, was sued earlier this month by four former housekeepers, who accused him of abusing them dozens of times over the years. His lawyer has denied the accusations. Now he is the subject of a criminal investigation.“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Special Victims Bureau is actively investigating criminal allegations involving William Robinson a.k.a. ‘Smokey Robinson,’” Nicole Nishida, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement. “The investigation is in the early stages, and we have no further comment.”The civil suit, filed in Los Angeles, identified the accusers only as Jane Does 1 through 4. They accused Mr. Robinson of raping them repeatedly over the years while they were employed cleaning several of his homes. The suit claimed that Mr. Robinson’s wife, Frances Robinson, has known about his sexual misconduct but failed to protect the women.Mr. Robinson’s lawyer, Christopher Frost, said in a statement that the unnamed plaintiffs had “filed a police report only after they filed a $50 million lawsuit,” which he said that the police would be required to investigate.“We feel confident that a determination will be made that Mr. Robinson did nothing wrong, and that this is a desperate attempt to prejudice public opinion and make even more of a media circus than the plaintiffs were previously able to create,” Mr. Frost said in a statement. “The record will ultimately demonstrate that this is nothing more than a manufactured lawsuit intended to tarnish the good names of Smokey and Frances Robinson, for no other reason than unadulterated avarice.”The lawyers for the plaintiffs, John Harris and Herbert Hayden, said in a statement that they were pleased to learn that the sheriff’s department had “opened a criminal investigation into our clients’ claims of sexual assault against Smokey Robinson.”“Our clients intend to fully cooperate with L.A.S.D.’s ongoing investigation in the pursuit of seeking justice for themselves and others that may have been similarly assaulted by him,” they said in the statement. More

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    Kennedy Center Employees, Alarmed by Trump, Push to Unionize

    Employees say they are concerned by the Trump administration’s efforts to “dismantle mission-essential departments and reshape our arts programming.”Since President Trump took control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts earlier this year, his administration has scaled back some programs there and fired nearly 40 employees.Those changes have unnerved many of the center’s administrative staff members, who work in programming, education, marketing, fund-raising, public relations and other areas. Now, seeking greater protection for their jobs, more than 90 of them are leading a push to unionize, they announced on Thursday.The employees, calling themselves the Kennedy Center United Arts Workers, said in a statement that they were concerned by the Trump administration’s efforts to “dismantle mission-essential departments and reshape our arts programming without regard to the interests of program funders, philanthropists, national partners and the audiences we serve.“We demand,” the statement continued, “transparent and consistent terms for hiring and firing, a return to ethical norms, freedom from partisan interference in programming, free speech protections and the right to negotiate the terms of our employment.”A push to unionize is likely to escalate tensions at the center, which has been in flux since Mr. Trump purged its previously bipartisan board of Biden appointees and had himself elected chairman in February. The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Trump administration has previously defended cost-cutting efforts, saying the center is in poor financial health and must scale back to survive. Mr. Trump recently requested $257 million from Congress for capital repairs and other expenses there, according to lawmakers; the funding is still being discussed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Cannes Film Festival 2025: Is This an Early Front-runner for the Palme d’Or?

    “Sound of Falling,” which tracks four German girls over the course of a century, drew early raves. But it might not go the distance.Survey journalists during the first few days of the Cannes Film Festival, and you’re likely to hear some grumbling. Though it may seem uncharitable to complain in such a glittery, glamorous location, it’s practically tradition for critics here to shrug at the initial salvo of movies, wondering how long it will take for a viable contender to emerge that could win the prestigious Palme d’Or.Sometimes, it takes quite awhile. Unlike other major film festivals, Cannes, which started Tuesday, doesn’t front-load its highest-profile titles: Significant movies unspool every day over two weeks, and the Palme winner often does not debut until the festival’s back half.This year, though, an early pacesetter seems to have emerged. Directed by Mascha Schilinski, “Sound of Falling” skips through time to track four girls who have lived on the same German farm over the course of a century. From the prewar era to the modern day, these young women contend with many of the same issues, from nascent sexual curiosity to brutally violent repression.It’s arty and lengthy in the way that Cannes juries often favor, and many of the early reviews were rapturous, especially those by critics who had prescreened the movie before the festival began. To hear those scribes tell it, “Sound of Falling” is “transfixing” (The Hollywood Reporter), “astonishingly poised and ambitious”(Variety), and “a high-water mark that will be hard for another feature to reach” (Vulture).Still, the response on the ground wasn’t entirely positive after Wednesday’s premiere. A critic friend texted me that he found the film “pretty vacuous” and the fest’s popular Screen International grid, which compiles scores from a dozen critics on a scale from one to four, gave “Sound of Falling” an average of 2.8. That’s respectable, but last year’s Palme winner, “Anora,” hit 3.3, while the previous victor, “Anatomy of a Fall,” earned a 3.0.Can passion win out over consensus? Stay tuned. More

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    Joe Don Baker, Actor Who Found Fame With ‘Walking Tall,’ Dies at 89

    His performance as a crusading Southern sheriff made him a star after a decade under the radar in character parts. He went on to play a wide range of roles.Joe Don Baker, the tall, broad-shouldered character actor who found overnight fame when he starred as a crusading Southern sheriff in “Walking Tall,” a surprise hit both at the box office and with critics, and who went on to an impressive range of screen roles over the next four decades, died on May 7. He was 89.The death was announced by his family on Tuesday. The announcement did not say where he died or cite a cause.Released in the era of “Dirty Harry” and “Billy Jack,” “Walking Tall” (1973) is the story of a Tennessee man who moves back to his hometown and finds it hopelessly changed by illegal gambling, prostitution and careless moonshiners. The movie, as Dave Kehr described it almost 40 years later in The New York Times, is “a wild-eyed fantasy about an incorruptible leader who finds it necessary to subvert the law in order to save it.”A low-budget production, directed by the journeyman filmmaker Phil Karlson, it opened on Staten Island months before it arrived in Manhattan but proved to be a phenomenon. Vincent Canby, reviewing the film in The Times, called it “relentlessly violent” but also “uncommonly well acted.”It was soon noticed and praised by a wide array of prominent critics. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called it “a volcano of a movie” and saw in Mr. Baker, a 37-year-old unknown with a decade of credits, mostly on television, “the mighty stature of a classic hero.”“The picture’s crudeness and its crummy cinematography give it the illusion of honesty,” she wrote.Vanity Fair wrote in 2000 that “Walking Tall” had “a major asset in Joe Don Baker,” whom it compared to Elvis Presley.MGM, via LMPC/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More