20/20 - Star Witness

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

With no cameras in the courtroom in the federal trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs, one of the key people taking in every word and noting reactions is ABC Coordinating Producer Tonya Simpson who’s there with her pen and notebook. Host Brian Buckmire talks with Tonya about the dramatic testimony of Cassie Ventura, the government’s first major witness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Brian Buckmeyer, an ABC News legal contributor and host of Bad Rap, the Case Against Diddy. You're about to hear our latest episode following everything going on in Sean Combs' trial from the prosecution and the defense. Remember, to hear all of our updates on this case, follow Bad Rap, the Case Against Diddy. We're dropping two new episodes every week, including one that's not available anywhere else. Now here's our episode.

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Service fees exclusions and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. A warning that this episode includes discussion of violence, sexual assault, and suicide, so please take care when listening. This week, USA v. Shawn Combs has been mostly about one witness, singer Cassie Ventura, who was in a romantic relationship with Shawn Combs for over a decade. Cassie brought the first civil lawsuit against Combs in 2023. It included allegations of sex trafficking and was settled quickly with no admission of guilt. This week, we

learned through her testimony the amount of that settlement, $20 million. For a long time, that lawsuit was the only look we had into her experience with Sean Combs. I remember when we were researching earlier episodes of this podcast, the lawsuit was one of the very few sources of information we had to draw from to try to understand her side of things. And now here's Cassie Ventura, sitting in court, very pregnant, answering question after question, testifying to how she believes Sean Combs held her career back. How she started off participating in orchestrated sex performances called freak-offs

because she wanted to please Combs. How she says leaving a freak-off early led to Combs beating her in the hallway of the Intercontinental Hotel back in 2016. The jury sought videos of that incident captured by the hotel's surveillance cameras. the hallway of the Intercontinental Hotel back in 2016. The jury saw videos of that incident captured by the hotel's surveillance cameras. Combs denies the federal charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, conspiracy, and interstate transportation for prostitution he's facing, and he's pled not guilty. Under cross-examination, the defense asks Cassie to read texts she'd sent to Combs.

Texts they say show her willingness, eagerness, and agency in the relationship. The defense also questioned whether her reluctance to participate in Combs' freak-offs was because she wanted their relationship to develop more, and to be more than their sexual encounters. In other words, was the story more about jealousy and infidelity than the serious charges Combs is facing? One of the people keeping an extremely close eye on everything happening in the courtroom is my colleague Tanya Simpson. She's a coordinating producer for ABC's investigative unit.

We're going to talk about what she heard and observed while sitting in the courtroom when Cassie was on the stand. I'm Brian Buckmeyer, an ABC News legal contributor and practicing attorney. You're listening to Bad Rap, the case against Diddy. This episode, Star Witness. Tanya, you and I have both been in court every day. I think we've been like line buddies as well for a while. We've heard some really incredible testimony. And I say incredible, not because it's like amazing,

but just almost beyond belief. Most notably from Cassie Ventura, Diddy's ex. We'll get into that in a minute. But listeners might be surprised to learn we can't take any electronic devices into the court. We can't take any electronic devices into the court. We'll get into that in a minute. But listeners might be surprised to learn we can't take any electronic devices into the court with us.

So we have to take notes the old fashioned way, pen and paper. How's your wrist holding up by the way? You know, my wrist is doing okay. My fingers were getting a little sore on the first day. I was starting to get a dent on one of my fingers from the pen. So I actually bought cushions to put on my pens while I'm writing and that has helped a lot. And I know you guys can't see us, but Tanya's flipping who's book.

One, some of the nicest writing I've seen. Two, very small writing. And so you're like squeezing things into the margins just to make it fit, but it's still just covering the page. Yeah. Yeah. I am a very meticulous note taker. Shout out to my grade school teachers for the penmanship.

Okay. So Tonya, let's dive into these notes of yours and see what you think about this case. What have been some of the more compelling points each side has made this week or things that stood out to you maybe more so in Cassie's testimony? Sure I think one of the first things that stood out for me in Cassie's testimony is when prosecutors asked her to walk through the hotel video. It was interesting to see her watching that video. I was paying very close attention to her face.

I was also looking at Sean Combs' face while she was watching. Cassie Ventura's husband has also been in the courtroom. I noticed him watching, did he, watching Sean Combs while the video was playing. But it was interesting to hear Cassie talk about everything that led up to what we saw in the video and then everything that came after. She explained that they were at the hotel, they were in L.A. She was getting ready for a big movie premiere.

And she talked about how she didn't necessarily want to do a freak off that weekend, but she felt like she needed to because she wanted her premiere to go smoothly. She talked about the fact that that was one of the only times that she had ever actually tried to leave a freak off. And Cassie Ventura claimed that the reason she tried to leave that freak off is because at some point she was hit in the face, she had a black eye, and she knew she had this movie premiere coming up,

and she didn't want to get any more injuries before she had to hit that red carpet. You mentioned Cassie Ventura's husband, Alex Fine, and I know that you and I are very close. I think you're just a little off to my side and maybe one row behind. I'm curious if you saw what I saw. I saw him staring at Sean Combs as well,

but did you see the side of his face and his ear turn red as if he was getting heated? He turned very, very red. And when he would look at Sean Combs and kind of look at Sean Combs, his family, it was a very pointed stare. It wasn't a glance. He would look at them for, for stretches of time, like a few seconds, maybe even a minute or so. Yeah, I was like, I've seen that glare. Absolutely. I also thought it was interesting that from the moment that Cassie came into the courtroom,

she would glance at her husband, Alex, when she walked in. While she's being questioned, she is looking very pointedly at the prosecutor. She does not look at Diddy. She is not looking over at the defense table. In between questions, I've seen her glance at the jury. I've seen her look down at her hands or at the screen in front of her, even when there's nothing on it.

But it's notable that she hasn't made any eye contact with Sean Combs. [♪ MUSIC PLAYING, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOLUME DISTORTION, VOL from the freak-offs that prosecutors presented as evidence in the case. How to present them, who gets to see them. ABC was actually part of a coalition of news organizations that argued that the media, or at least a small pool of journalists, should be able to see these videos so that we can describe what's in it, report on it, but not to actually publish the images or videos. The judge said no. So only the jurors, the witness, Cassie, were able to look at these still images on screens in front of them. The attorneys had hard copies of the images in a binder. I wonder what you make of that decision.

I understood why the judge came to the conclusion that they did. There are competing constitutional rights in the courtroom at any given time. Privacy rights of the alleged victim, constitutional rights of the defendant, but also constitutional rights of the public and the media. And I think when all of these butt heads, the court errs on the side of, let's protect the person who has gone through these alleged acts. While they are allegations, there are documentations and photos of them as well.

And I think the belief is that we as journalists can have the ability to articulate what we saw and heard in court sufficiently enough to inform the public without, as the court suggested, re-traumatizing Cassie or anyone else who takes the stand. We do have the opportunity, because we're in court, to see how the jury and people in the courtroom react. So how did they react when they saw some of these very graphic pieces of evidence and

also hear the testimony? There were definitely reactions from the jury during some of the really graphic points. At one point when Cassie was describing being urinated on, I saw several jurors look down at the floor and shake their heads. They looked a little disgusted. During Cassie's testimony, when jurors were given the opportunity to see still images from videos of freak offs,

there were a couple of jurors I noticed would look at the screens in front of them and look away pretty quickly. Like they didn't really want to look closely. Something else that I noticed during Cassie's testimony that wasn't as graphic, the jurors are riveted. Their eyes are on her. A lot of times in court, it looks like a tennis match.

The jurors will look back and forth between the prosecution or the defense attorney and back to the person they're questioning. During Cassie's testimony, most of the jurors have been locked in. I've seen some of them leaning in. They're taking a lot of notes. During these graphic sections of the testimony, not a lot of note taking, not a lot of looking at Cassie. It is a lot of looking down, looking uncomfortable.

Like I said, looking a little disgusted and even a little sad for her. Tonya, in the morning, Cassie came across as very stoic and matter of fact. In a way to me, that was a little jarring. I think if anyone is describing the sexual abuse and the trafficking or the allegations thereof, you would be trepidatious. You would be shocked.

You would say it as like a shocking thing. But she talked about it as plainly as I'm talking about. Yeah, you're wearing a green sweater. Yeah, you have headphones on. And she would just matter of fact. But in the afternoon, when the testimony got very dark, things changed, right? Yeah. During the morning, it was a lot of what I would say, technical questions, the

kind of the who's the what's the where. And you're right, she was soft spoken, but it was very monotone where she kind of ticked through some of the names and the places that the freak offs would happen. Wednesday afternoon, they asked her questions about how she was feeling and questions about her going to rehab and going to trauma therapy after her and Sean Combs' relationship ended. And we saw a very different Cassie. It started with her getting choked up a little bit when she talked about feeling like she has PTSD. And then she started sobbing when she recounted a story of how she didn't want to live anymore

at one point. At one point, she apologized to the prosecutor and said, I'm sorry, I just need a minute. The prosecutor offered her a box of tissue and gave her a second before they continued. But you could tell that it was a really hard thing for her to talk about. And yeah, I think that was one of the most emotional moments that we saw from Cassie during her testimony. When we come back, one of the stakes for the prosecution in having their star witness testify at the very beginning of what's expected to be a long trial? Why do Fintechs like Float choose Visa?

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She is manipulating us. Breathe in, breathe out. Why are you resisting? Is it too late to get a refund? The all new season of Nine Perfect Strangers is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu and Disney+. New episodes May 21st. I'm back with Tonya Simpson. She's the coordinating producer for ABC's investigative unit,

and someone who's been in the courtroom paying very close attention to what's unfolding, and we're debriefing on what we observed. So I am not a lawyer, even though I've been spending a lot of time in court these past couple months. So I'm excited to be sitting down with someone who is because I really want to get your take on something. Again, incredible testimony from Cassie Ventura.

But how do you think that her testimony fits into the prosecution's charges against Sean Combs? So I think when I watch trials, I watch them a little differently than the average person, which I also think is somewhat at a bit of a disadvantage because at the end of the day, it's not an attorney who decides guilt or innocence. It's everyday citizens who sign up and choose to be jurors. But when I listened to the testimony and I watched the jurors, I'm thinking here is the square hole. This is the peg that the government is trying to fit into it. And is it fitting? Is a square peg too big? Is it a circular peg? Is a triangular peg? Whatever it is. And I would say in the first day of Cassie's

testimony, it didn't feel like this peg was fitting correctly into the hole. And the reason for that is, is as a former public defender at the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn, I've represented people who have been victims of domestic violence, victims of sex trafficking,

people who have sex trafficked others. And I say, listen to it. I was like, does this sound like domestic violence or does it sound like trafficking? And then the first day I was like, these sound like the elements of a crime that'll be more in line with domestic violence from the facts that we were hearing. But on the second day of testimony, that's when I started to hear testimony and evidence. And also the way that Cassie was talking about Sean Combs, I was like, I've heard this tone before.

I have heard this type of conversation before. I have heard these elements before. And that's when I started to piece together. I think they're getting closer to the trafficking allegations. Now, I say closer because they still need to have individuals come forward and testify to say, I was part of this criminal enterprise. Sean Cohn did this intentionally for the purpose of trafficking. This wasn't just a violent relationship. I think they still need a lot of pieces, but I'm starting to see the pieces align with

what the government is accusing in the second day of testimony And I also think in my non-expert non-legal opinion I I think that cassie's testimony Has done a lot for the charge of transportation to engage in prostitution She has testified about multiple Escorts that they hired and how these same escorts, they would see them in different cities in different states. She talked about how they would arrange travel for some of the escorts at one point internationally.

She says they flew an escort to Ibiza for a freak off. I want to get your thoughts on that. And also what about the racketeering? So I always hate to look over a defense attorney's shoulder and be like, this argument doesn't really make sense. But when the defense made the argument that this is not transportation for the sake of prostitution, because Sean Combs was paying for the time of escorts and dancers, because he was just believing he was paying for their time, wasn't paying for sex. I kind of looked over at people and be like, come on now.

This, come on now. I think I made- Is that what you got, Faze? Is there more coming, Faze? Come on now. And the defense that they were making, I just didn't think really worked out. And it just seems like an easy layup for the government

and the way they're presenting this case. So I don't see an argument to combat what you're articulating. And I agree, the easily laid out facts that make out that charge. When it comes to the racketeering, I think that's more difficult for the government. There are a lot more moving pieces

that you have to fit into place. And if one moving piece doesn't fit correctly, the whole structure can fall. And I one moving piece doesn't fit correctly, the whole structure can fall. And I see the defense having much more opportunities to poke holes in that case or to make that structure fall when it comes to the sex trafficking charge, when you're arguing this is simply just domestic violence and the racketeering when you're saying there is no criminal enterprise here. So Cassie Ventura was considered, I think, pretty much by everyone to be the government's

star witness, a key witness. She is one of the first people to testify. Are there pros and cons to having your star witness testify during the very first week of what is being estimated to be an up to eight week trial, six to eight weeks? So the pro of having your star witness testify so early, and I don't even think they really had a choice with this. Cassie Ventura is very much pregnant to the point that I think her due date must be very soon.

Eight and a half months. Yeah. And so I think for her health, the health of her child, the health of her family, I think the government's doing the right thing by getting her in and out of here as quickly as possible. So it's not really a her in and out of here as quickly as possible. So it's not really a choice in terms of strategy here.

But if it was a choice and it was strategy, I think it's good in the sense of you set the tone and the tenor of the case very quickly. You understand what happened to your star witness or the alleged victim, how you wanna describe them or what perspective you're looking at it, and you hopefully that carries on throughout the trial. The difficulty or the downside of that is,

when you get to a point where you're doing your closing argument, some eight weeks later, the end of June, beginning of July, you've gotta keep telling people, remember what I said two months ago, remember this, remember that, and jogging their memory and trying to piece it all together can be difficult. And I think it might also amount to a little bit

of a longer deliberation time, because then the jury's gotta get in there, they gotta request testimony from two months ago. They've gotta compare and contrast it. Hopefully their notes are as good as mine are. I mean, with your handwriting, we should just photocopy it and send it to the jurors at this point.

I think it would work out much better. But that's kind of the downside there. ["Sexual Assault"] Thanks to ABC coordinating producer, Tanya Simpson, for joining me for this episode. Tanya, I'll be seeing you back in the courtroom. Before we go, if you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE or go to rainn.org.

That's it for this episode of Bad Rap, the Case Against Diddy. Make sure to check out a new special from ABC News called Diddy on Trial that's now streaming on Hulu. Nightline co-anchor Byron Pitts sits down with Charluci Finney, a music producer and longtime friend of Combs, in his first network interview. Here's a clip from the special. I never received a dollar from a c*** as a payroll. That's a clip from the special. I never received a dollar from a... as a payroll. That's my brother.

Blood make you related, but loyalty make you family. You can find Diddy on trial from Impact by Nightline only on Hulu. If you have something you're curious about in the Diddy trial, leave a voicemail for me at 646-504-3221. You might even hear me answer it next week on the podcast.

The number again is 646-504-3221. You can also find it on our show notes. Thanks to everyone who's called in to ask your questions so far. Bad Rap, the case against Diddy is a production of ABC audio. I'm Brian Buckmeyer. Our podcast production team includes Vika Aronson, Nancy Rosenbaum, Audrey Maztek, Amira Williams, Tracy Samuelson, and Sasha Aslanian. Special thanks to Stephanie Morris, Kaitlyn Morris, Liz Alesi, Katie Dendas, and the team at ABC News Live.

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