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      in Music

      Cassie Testifies Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Used Sex Videos as Blackmail

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      Ms. Ventura, Mr. Combs’s ex-girlfriend, said he threatened to use tapes of their sexual encounters, known as “freak-offs,” to control her behavior.Casandra Ventura, the singer and model known as Cassie, told a jury in Manhattan on Wednesday that her life with Sean Combs had its moments, but was largely filled with beatings, threatened blackmail and even a rape.During more than five hours of testimony in Mr. Combs’s sex trafficking and racketeering trial, Ms. Ventura recounted how he had stomped on her in the back of his car and how she suffered a gash above her eye when he threw her against a bed frame.She also recounted how, after the pair had dinner in 2018, Mr. Combs raped her in her living room.“I just remember crying and saying no, but it was very fast,” she testified.At the end of her testimony, Ms. Ventura said through tears that after she had broken up with Mr. Combs, the trauma remained and she enrolled in treatment for drug abuse. Even so, she said, she contemplated taking her life by walking into traffic. She said her husband stopped her.Ms. Ventura told the court she stayed with Mr. Combs despite beatings and other abuse partly because of the nagging, persistent fear that videos of their sexual encounters with male prostitutes, the hundreds of “freak-offs” that she said Mr. Combs enjoyed watching and recording, would be posted online.Hers was not idle anxiety based on what she viewed Mr. Combs might be capable of, she said, but the consequence of repeated threats he had made to use the material to damage her if she deviated from his wishes. In one case, she described sitting beside him on a flight when he displayed for her videos that she thought had been destroyed.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

    • 125 Shares178 Views

      in Music

      Cassie Settled Lawsuit Against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs for $20 Million

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      Casandra Ventura testified in federal court about her 2023 lawsuit against Mr. Combs, whom she had accused of years of physical abuse and sexual coercion.In her final moments of direct testimony at the federal trial of Sean Combs on Wednesday, Casandra Ventura revealed the amount of a civil settlement that Mr. Combs and his businesses paid her after she filed a bombshell lawsuit in November 2023.Mr. Combs’s lawyers had previously disclosed that the payment was a “substantial eight-figure settlement.” Ms. Ventura clarified in court that she had received $20 million.The lawsuit, which accused Mr. Combs of years of physical abuse and sexual coercion, was settled one day after it was filed. But it precipitated a deluge of lawsuits and the federal criminal investigation that resulted in the music mogul’s arrest on racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking charges.Mr. Combs has vehemently denied that he coerced Ms. Ventura — or anyone — into sex and has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him.On the witness stand in Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan, Ms. Ventura testified for hours on Wednesday about injuries she said she received from physical abuse by Mr. Combs, and detailed the drug-dazed sex marathons with male escorts that she said occurred “hundreds” of times throughout their decade-long relationship.The defense first disclosed months ago that before Ms. Ventura filed her lawsuit, a lawyer representing her approached counsel for Mr. Combs and offered to sell the rights to a book she had written that detailed her account of their relationship. The suggested price: $30 million.On the stand, Ms. Ventura confirmed that proposal.“I wanted to be compensated for the time, the pain,” Ms. Ventura testified, as well as for the “many, many years” trying to “fix” her life.Ms. Ventura said she wrote the book during and after she went to rehab in 2023, which she described as involving “trauma therapy” and coming off Valium. She said her mother helped her get the materials organized. She decided to send chapters to Mr. Combs.“I really wanted Sean to read the information,” Ms. Ventura testified. “I wanted him to understand what I had to learn to understand over that period.”Ms. Ventura said she checked with one of his top employees, Kristina Khorram, to check if he read it, but she was told that people did not believe she was the author.Mr. Combs’s lawyers have described Ms. Ventura’s attempt to sell the book rights as “extortion” in court papers. Ms. Ventura decided to ask for $30 million without having done research about book payments, she testified, but she thought that number would get his attention.Olivia Bensimon More

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      Cassie Says of Sean Combs Abuse: ‘You Treat Me Like You’re Ike Turner’

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      Casandra Ventura’s second day of testimony included her blunt response to the mogul about his pattern of physical abuse and details of her fear of blackmail.Casandra Ventura, the singer and model known as Cassie, testified on Wednesday in the federal trial of Sean Combs, her former boyfriend and label boss, about living with the fear of going against his wishes — and especially his sexual desires.In her second day of testimony, Ms. Ventura said she went along with the increasingly extreme and frequent “freak-offs” demanded by Mr. Combs because she worried that he would respond with anger or physical violence and follow through on his threats to leak explicit videos of her in degrading sexual encounters.Mr. Combs is accused of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution, and the government contends that Ms. Ventura and others had been coerced into participating in freak-offs and other sexual encounters with Mr. Combs. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his lawyers have argued that Ms. Ventura, and other women who are part of the case, were willing participants and that his sexual arrangements were all consensual.Ms. Ventura testified that Mr. Combs would take videos of the freak-offs — marathon sex sessions — that she participated in and that he later threatened to release what she called “blackmail material.”During a 2013 flight from Cannes, France, she testified, Mr. Combs pulled up videos on his laptop of her in freak-offs, which she thought had been deleted. He threatened to release the videos to embarrass her.“I just felt trapped,” she said.During freak-offs, she said, Mr. Combs would grab her, push her down, kick her and hit her on the side of her head. At one point, she texted him, “You treat me like you’re Ike Turner,” referring to Tina Turner’s abusive husband and bandleader.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

    • 125 Shares121 Views

      in Movies

      Cannes Reacts to Gérard Depardieu Verdict With Soul-Searching and Shrugs

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      The actor, who was found guilty of sexual assault on Tuesday, was a festival stalwart and had brought nearly 30 movies to the event.In the French film industry, there are perhaps no two bigger institutions than the Cannes Film Festival and the movie star Gérard Depardieu. And on the first day of this year’s festival, Depardieu, who won the best actor prize here in 1990, was found guilty of sexual assault.Depardieu’s conviction was seen as a victory for the #MeToo movement in France, which took hold more slowly than in the United States. He was given an 18-month suspended sentence on charges of assaulting two women in 2021 on the set of the movie “Les Volets Verts.”In the seaside sun of Cannes, Depardieu’s conviction was met with serious consideration by some and a nonchalant shrug by others.But whatever their view, everybody was talking about it, including at a news conference on Tuesday to introduce the competition jury to the media. Reporters asked Juliette Binoche, the French actress who leads this year’s jury, about the verdict multiple times.Depardieu’s conviction was a result for the #MeToo movement, she said, which was also having an effect on the inclusion of women in the competition and jury lineup at Cannes. “I think that the festival is increasingly in step with what’s happening today,” Binoche said, adding that in France, “our #MeToo wave took some while to gain strength.”Many in France took a skeptical view of the movement at first. In a 2018 open letter to Le Monde newspaper, Catherine Deneuve and more than 100 other Frenchwomen in the entertainment industry complained that a wave of public accusations was creating a totalitarian climate.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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      in Music

      What Are the ‘Freak-Offs’ at the Core of the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Case?

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      Casandra Ventura, the mogul’s former girlfriend, has described them as marathon sexual encounters that he directed, involving drugs and hired male prostitutes.The term first came to public awareness in November 2023, when the singer Cassie filed a lawsuit accusing Sean Combs, her onetime boyfriend and record label boss, of years of sexual and physical abuse: “freak-off.”According to the suit by Cassie, who was born Casandra Ventura, this was what Mr. Combs called the highly choreographed sexual encounters that he directed “to engage in a fantasy of his called ‘voyeurism.’” They involved costumes, like masks and lingerie. “Copious amounts of drugs,” including Ecstasy and ketamine. The hiring of male prostitutes. Mr. Combs watching and recording the events on a phone while he masturbated.Freak-offs have become a central part of the government’s case, which charges Mr. Combs with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have strongly denied that any of his sexual encounters with women were not consensual.In much-anticipated court testimony this week, Ms. Ventura — who is visibly pregnant with her third child — described the freak-offs in sometimes excruciating terms. During hours of testimony on Tuesday, she cried and occasionally dabbed her eyes with tissue.The first freak-off happened when she was 22, when Mr. Combs hired a male stripper from Las Vegas to come to a home that Mr. Combs was renting in Los Angeles, she testified. Ms. Ventura said she wore a masquerade-style mask and provocative clothing from a “sex store,” and that she and the man took Ecstasy and drank alcohol before they had sex and Mr. Combs watched.The freak-offs “made me feel worthless,” Ms. Ventura testified, “like I didn’t have anything else to offer” Mr. Combs.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

    • 163 Shares104 Views

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      Cassie Recounts ‘Violent Arguments’ and ‘Physical Abuse’ by Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs During Testimony

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      The singer began testifying before a federal jury in the sex-trafficking and racketeering case against the music mogul.Casandra Ventura, the singer and model known as Cassie, began testifying for a federal jury on Tuesday morning in the sex-trafficking and racketeering case against Sean Combs, recalling a pattern of physical abuse and psychological control that she said long dominated her life.In the first minutes of her testimony, Ms. Ventura was asked by prosecutors to describe the more than decade-long relationship she had with Mr. Combs.“There were violent arguments that would usually result in some sort of physical abuse,” she answered, later detailing that she would get busted lips, black eyes, knots in her forehead and “bruises all over my body.”Lawyers for Mr. Combs have portrayed the relationship as loving but deeply toxic — they have acknowledged he was responsible for “domestic violence” — while maintaining that any sexual arrangements were completely consensual.Ms. Ventura, 38, wore a brown turtleneck dress that accentuated her pregnant belly. As she entered court, Mr. Combs turned back in his chair to see her walk in. His lawyers had asked the judge to have her present on the stand before the jury entered, a request that the judge apparently denied.During her testimony, which is expected to last through the end of the week, Ms. Ventura was soft-spoken and visibly emotional, dabbing at her nose and eyes with a tissue. Jurors watched Ms. Ventura intently as she spoke.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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      in Music

      In Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Trial, Cassie Is the Star Witness

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      The identity of the individual referred to in waves of dramatic legal filings as Victim-1 — the woman at the very center of the racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking case against the music mogul Sean Combs — was never much in question.But when she takes the witness stand at a Manhattan courthouse under her own name this week, there will be little doubt that there would not have been a criminal indictment against Mr. Combs without the testimony of Casandra Ventura.A singer and model known mononymously as Cassie, she was Mr. Combs’s on-and-off girlfriend — and employee — almost from the time they met in 2005 (when she was 19, he 37), until she finally severed ties from his storied record label, Bad Boy, in 2019.After months of preparation and anticipation, Ms. Ventura, now 38, is expected to recount for the jury how Mr. Combs instituted a system of abuse and control over her life and career for more than a decade. Prosecutors say the executive dangled ever-disappearing music opportunities; beat her when she stepped out of line; and plied her with drugs, forcing Ms. Ventura to have marathon sex sessions with male prostitutes while he taped the encounters.Lawyers for Mr. Combs have portrayed the relationship as loving but deeply toxic and complex, prone to infidelity and mutual abuse, while maintaining that any sexual arrangements were completely consensual. They depict Ms. Ventura as a bitter ex and extortionist who sought only a payday, not justice.What both sides cannot disagree about is that it was Ms. Ventura’s decision in late 2023, following extensive therapy, to pour her allegations into a federal lawsuit — and Mr. Combs’s choice not to settle the dispute before it became public — that led to this moment, in which Mr. Combs, 55, has fallen from a beloved billionaire celebrity to an inmate facing a potential life sentence.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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      in Music

      After Allegations, Smokey Robinson Show Goes On as Planned

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      The 85-year-old Motown star performed for an adoring crowd and made no mention of the claims against him at his first concert since being named in a lawsuit.By the time Smokey Robinson performed “Cruisin’” near the end of his concert at the Beau Rivage Theater on Friday night, the mutual admiration was in full display between the Motown icon and a revering audience of nearly 1,600 people, with no mention made of the sexual assault allegations levied against him this week.Mr. Robinson had long discarded the jacket from the sparkling green suit and the tie he had begun the night with.“Do you know what you volunteered for?” he asked one woman he invited onstage.“We’ll be right back,” Mr. Robinson said when she answered that she had freely agreed to join him in front of the audience, and he took a few steps pretending to accompany her backstage. He then implored her to get the audience to sing “Cruisin’” lyrics with them.Mr. Robinson, 85, smiled widely throughout a festive set, dancing suggestively while performing many of his landmark songs as part of a tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of his album “A Quiet Storm” and the release of a new album, “What the World Needs Now.”He proceeded with the concert just days after four women who worked as housekeepers for Mr. Robinson claimed in a lawsuit that he had repeatedly sexually abused them for years at his homes in California and Nevada. Three of the women did not report the allegations sooner over fear of their immigration status, the lawsuit states.The suit argues that Mr. Robinson created a hostile work environment and demanded they work long hours without receiving minimum wage. It also claims that Mr. Robinson’s wife, Frances Robinson, knew of the assaults but did not to stop them.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