Ventura, Cassandra (Cassie)

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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

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      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

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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 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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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Loses Request to Remove All Hotel Assault Video From Trial

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      It is not yet clear how much surveillance footage of the music mogul beating his former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, in 2016 will be presented to the jury.Lawyers for Sean Combs lost their bid to keep all footage of his 2016 hotel assault on his former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, out of his racketeering and sex trafficking trial, which starts next month.At a hearing on Friday, Judge Arun Subramanian ruled that some footage surrounding the assault could be admitted, but it is not yet clear how much of it will be shown.The music mogul’s lawyers argued that the security footage, published by CNN last year, had been sped up, and that the events depicted in it were presented out of sequence. They did not dispute that the video showed their client beating, kicking and dragging Ms. Ventura, but they asserted that the way the footage had been presented was “deceptive” and not fit to be used as evidence.The government is not seeking to admit the entire CNN broadcast into the trial, but there is other footage of the incident, including files provided by CNN through a subpoena.Prosecutors said they were working to slow down some of the CNN footage based on the defense’s concerns. They also said there are two iPhone videos taken of the original footage that partially depict the incident, and the witness who took them will be testifying at the trial.The jury selection process in the case begins on Monday, and opening statements are scheduled for May 12.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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      ‘The Pitt’ Is Concerned About Your Health, America

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      The Max hospital drama is a TV throwback with an of-the-moment message about systems pushed to the breaking point.Ever have one of those endless days at work? For 15 hours in the Pitt, the emergency room that lends its name to the Max medical drama, a team of doctors and nurses, led by Dr. Michael Robinavitch (Noah Wyle), have been tackling every woe that human frailty and the city of Pittsburgh can throw at them.What do they treat? You name it. Mass-shooting injuries. Overdoses. Problem pregnancies. Heart attacks. Measles.What do they really treat? Despair. The flood of opioids. The lack of insurance. The lack of support networks. Male rage. Rage, in general. The breakdown of the public health system. The breakdown of the public.Over a long, stressful, yet reassuringly competent and entertaining first season, which wrapped up on Thursday, “The Pitt” generated old-school melodrama out of a simple understanding: The E.R. is where people end up when something goes wrong, either with the body individual or with the body politic.And what is wrong with the American corpus? Buddy, take a number; the waiting room is full.If the concerns of “The Pitt” are of-the-moment, its appeal is as old as rabbit-ear antennas. It’s a Big Fat Hospital Show, wringing suspense and jerking tears out of life and death weekly. It is a successor, almost a crypto-sequel, to a specific Big Fat Hospital Show — “ER,” the alma mater of Wyle; the “Pitt” creator, R. Scott Gemmill; and the producer John Wells. (The estate of Michael Crichton, the creator of “ER,” has filed a lawsuit accusing “The Pitt” of being an unauthorized reboot. Warner Bros. Television, the studio that produces “The Pitt,” has called the claims “baseless.”)Three decades ago, “ER” was itself a new spin on a hoary genre, and “The Pitt” shares some of its predecessor’s hallmarks. There’s the adrenaline pace, with the camera chasing doctors and nurses around a fully built-out hospital set. There is the dedication to technical realism. (“Does [show] get [factual detail] right?” is my least favorite standard for judging art, but if that’s your thing, medical professionals give it high marks.) The season even bookends its beginning and ending with scenes on the roof, calling back to the site of several high-drama “ER” moments.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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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Faces New Sex-Trafficking Charge Ahead of Trial

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      Weeks before the music mogul is scheduled to stand trial, prosecutors added a more serious charge involving a woman they refer to as “Victim-2.”Federal prosecutors have amended the indictment against Sean Combs, who is scheduled to stand trial next month, to include a second major sex-trafficking charge, according to a grand jury indictment unsealed on Friday.The new charge relates to a woman described by prosecutors as “Victim-2.” They allege that she is one of three female victims whom Mr. Combs coerced into sex.Before, Mr. Combs had been charged only with sex trafficking “Victim-2” under a less serious charge that makes it illegal to transport a person “with intent that such individual engage in prostitution.” The new indictment adds a second count of a more serious sex-trafficking charge that carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.Mr. Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, which include a count of racketeering conspiracy, and has vehemently denied sex trafficking anyone. His lawyers have argued that the conduct the prosecutors are targeting involves consensual sex.In a statement released on Friday in response to the new charges, the Combs defense team said: “These are not new allegations or new accusers. These are the same individuals, former long-term girlfriends, who were involved in consensual relationships. This was their private sex life, defined by consent, not coercion.”Jury selection in the trial, which will be held at Federal District Court in Manhattan, is scheduled to start in late April. Opening statements are scheduled to start on May 12.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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      Sean Combs’s Lawyers Say Video of Hallway Assault Was Altered

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      The video, a critical piece of the prosecution’s case, shows the music mogul beating and kicking his girlfriend at a hotel in 2016.Lawyers for Sean Combs argued at a court hearing on Friday that a leaked security video showing Mr. Combs assaulting his former girlfriend was “deceptive,” and said they would request that it not be allowed as evidence at his upcoming trial on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.That video, recorded at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016, was broadcast by CNN last year, months before Mr. Combs’s arrest. It showed him beating, kicking and dragging Casandra Ventura, his former girlfriend and an artist once signed to his record label under her stage name, Cassie.Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, said that a forensic analysis of the security footage aired by CNN showed that the video had been sped up from its original source, that events were depicted out of sequence and that time stamps on the original tape had been covered up.“It’s a deceptive piece of evidence,” Mr. Agnifilo argued. Mr. Combs’s lawyers, however, did not define how a change in sequencing would have affected a viewer’s understanding of what occurred.Mr. Combs’s legal team also accused CNN of destroying the original footage, and said they planned to file a motion to exclude the video from evidence at Mr. Combs’s criminal trial, which is set to begin in May.CNN, in a statement from a spokeswoman, denied the allegations. “CNN never altered the video and did not destroy the original copy of the footage, which was retained by the source,” the statement said.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