Attorneys for Sean «Diddy» Combs on Thursday, May 15, tried to chip away at the credibility of Casandra Ventura, the music mogul’s former girlfriend, after two days of her grueling
Attorneys for Sean “Diddy” Combs on Thursday, May 15, tried to chip away at the credibility of Casandra Ventura, the music mogul’s former girlfriend, after two days of her grueling testimony in his trial on sex-trafficking charges.
Ventura, the singer widely known as Cassie, told jurors that Combs raped, beat and forced her into drug-fueled sex parties during their more than 10 years together — excruciating accounts that opened her up to scrutiny from Combs’s legal team.
Defense attorney Anna Estevao’s line of questioning Thursday sought to imply that drug addiction played a key role in Combs’s violent outbursts, along with a pattern of toxic jealousy that both Ventura and the rapper were party to.
Ventura said she and Combs both suffered from addiction to opioid drugs, and individually dealt with intense withdrawal symptoms.
In her final question of the day, Estevao asked if the MDMA drugs taken prior to one of the “freak-off” sex performances that led to a 2016 assault at a Los Angeles-area hotel were a “bad batch” — Ventura replied she had no idea.
Much of the day consisted of a relatively calm, meticulous focus on a ream of texts between the couple.
The defense highlighted tender moments, pointing out messages in which Combs and Ventura expressed love for each other. Other messages were sexually explicit.
When asked why she would look forward to seeing Combs, 38-year-old Ventura replied: “Because I had fallen in love with him and cared about him very much.
