Law&Crime Sidebar - P. Diddy on Trial: Defense Claps Back at Cassie

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura took the witness stand for the third day in the rapper’s federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial. This time, her testimony about Combs’ allegedly abusive and criminal behavior was called into question by his legal team. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber got all the details from inside the federal courthouse from correspondent Elizabeth Millner.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If your child, under 21, has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, visit https://forthepeople.com/food to start a claim now! HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Day four of Sean Diddy Combe's sex trafficking and racketeering trial got intense in a hurry as Diddy's ex-girlfriend Cassandra Ventura faced a blistering cross-examination with defense lawyers using old love texts and steamy messages to challenge her claims of horrifying abuse. From freakoffs to jealousy to burger phones, it all came out in court today. And I'm going to be speaking with our very own Elizabeth Milner to get the inside scoop, including a major witness who's set to take the stand next.

Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. The fourth day of testimony in Sean Diddycomb sex trafficking, and racketeering trial turned explosive as his former girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, faced quite aggressive cross-examination about her tumultuous, 11-year relationship with Combs. The defense pushed back hard on Ventura's allegations that she was coerced and abused by the fallen mogul, showing jurors old text messages and emails where the two appeared to exchange loving words, even some pretty explicit plans for their so-called freak-offs, raises the question of consent or not.

So to give us that up close and personal account of every single gripping moment that happened inside that courtroom, we're going to bring back on Long Crimes Reporter, Elizabeth Milner, who was in that courtroom once again. Elizabeth, thank you so much for coming on. So set the scene for us. What was the atmosphere in that courtroom like today? Was it tense when we're talking about cross-examination? Did it feel different than direct examination? Yeah, for the most part, this was a day that a lot of us were anticipating. A lot of us were wondering, what is the defense going to have when it comes to this cross-examination? You know, the last couple of days, while Cassie's been under direct examination, to me at least, just kind of watching her, watching her tone, watching how she answers these questions, she really kind of seemed very compelling. She felt like a compelling witness.

So obviously, the defense's job is going to be to poke holes in. in this. Did you want to participate in these freakoffs? Did you have a way of helping set these up? Did you initiate wanting these freakoffs in some instances when Diddy was sick or other instances as well, too? And so today was definitely a very highly anticipated day. As far as the tone just in the courtroom, I think a lot of people were just kind of wanting to know what was going to happen next. So as far as just who was inside that courtroom today, it looked a little different than it has, you know, on day one and even a little bit into day two in that, you know, we had Karen Agnifalo inside that courtroom today. She is obviously married to Mark

Agnifalo. You had Diddy's mother, Janice Combs in the courtroom, his sons, Christian Combs, Quincy Brown, Justin Combs all came into the courtroom today. Notably, the daughters, again, not inside that courtroom today. Chance's mother who's been inside that courtroom also wasn't there today. Neither was Justin's mother inside that courtroom. So it was a little different. than we've seen, you know, on prior days, especially for opening statements, as well as even into day two. As far as those who were there to support Cassie was still the same as it has been the other couple of days she's been testifying. Her husband, Alex Fine, was inside that courtroom. Cassie's brother was inside that courtroom as well as Cassie's mother and her attorney, Doug Wigder.

As far as even when Cassie came into the courtroom today, you would think that maybe she would appear nervous or just a little shaken depending on, you know, what to expect really from what the cross-examination. would look like, but she appeared very cool, calm, and collected, just similar to how she has been on the stand these last couple of days. She just walked up to the witness stand. You know, the judge reaffirmed that she is still under oath. And so she just sat there. And even when Anna Maria Esteveo was asking her question, she, for the most part, appeared cool, common collective. Her tone was still the same even during, as far as comparing it to direct, her direct testimony, where, you know, she was very soft-spoken. There were times, you know, she wasn't saying yes or anything like that. Instead, she was saying, yep, or mm-hmm. And she just appeared, you know, again, very soft-spoken.

She appeared that she didn't seem nervous, at least from what I could see of her. Of course, there were some moments where you could kind of feel that she was uncomfortable, especially when it came to these graphic text messages that were being displayed, but she didn't feel comfortable necessarily reading them out loud. And it makes a lot of sense, right? This was, you know, it appeared that these were private messages between people who were dating, people who were together for a years-long period. But just keep in mind even to now, she is married to somebody else. And, you know, her husband was in that courtroom. And so I could tell that there was a little uncomfy moments when it came to, especially some of those graphic text messages that were being displayed in court today.

But as far as the tone goes, just overall, it appeared just kind of like another day in court. I'm assuming that, you know, Cassie kind of knew what to expect as far as where the defense would go, what type of questions that they would ask her, knowing that they would try to poke holes into her credibility. But again, she appeared cool, calm and collected while on the stand. No emotional moments or anything like that. No points where she appeared visibly agitated or angry. Just, you know, for the most part, asking clarifying questions. Can you repeat that? Can you ask it a different way? Can you talk about what time frame this was? Oh, I don't remember these text messages. And so that was kind of most of the tone. throughout most of the cross-examination today. Hey, everybody, this is a law and crime legal alert. Did you know that children are being diagnosed with serious conditions like type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease? And the research is potentially linking ultra-processed foods to this? Yeah, well, Morgan and Morgan stepping in to fight to hold these food companies accountable.

With decades of experience fighting large corporations, they are ready to stand up for the families who deserve justice. So if your child, under 21, has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, then visit www. for the people.com slash food or scan the QR code on screen to learn more. So before we get into the substance of what the cross-examination was about, there are two other groups of people I were curious about how they were reacting throughout the day. How were the jurors reacting during the cross-examination from what you could see? And how was Diddy reacting during the cross-examination by his defense counsel?

As far as I could see from the jurors today, seemed some at some points a little bored it seemed at some points they're kind of wondering what's happening next i think even when the text messages were shown a lot of them were very much analyzing them a lot of them had direct focus onto the computer screen in front of them just so that way they could read all the messages even the more graphic sexually explicit messages um a lot of or i saw there were sometimes some jurors were doing you know the tennis match look where they were either looking at cassie who was on the witness stand then looking at anna maria estaveo while she was asking the questions, kind of doing a back and forth. Meanwhile, some other jurors were just

laser focus on Cassie and just what she had to say and how she responded to the cross-examination today. As far as Diddy goes, did he, just like every other day, is very much participating in his defense, very much so passing off notes to his defense attorneys to kind of hand over to Esteveo, who was standing up doing the questioning. He very much so was intently looking at either Cassie or the exhibits in front of him. especially when it came to those sexually explicit text messages or even just the text messages and the emails back and forth with one another. And so just like every other day, Diddy is very much so participating in his defense

because as the defense has pointed out a number of times that Cassie is a very critical witness to the case. Mark Agnifalo said she is probably the most key witness in this case, somebody that, you know, they wanted to make sure that they were doing a thorough cross-examination of her because Diddy's life somewhat depends on this because, you know, they were making the point that he's facing a life sentence if he's convicted. And so they wanted to make sure that they were asking every single question that they needed to ask. Do I think that was necessarily accomplished? I'm sure we'll get to that in just a second. But for the most part, as far as Diddy goes today, he was definitely participating like usual. Yeah, and look, she is the number one witness. What do I mean by that?

She's the star witness. She starts at the start of this trial. I believe this case. rises and falls with her testimony. She is making up a number of the counts that he's facing right now, racketeering, sex trafficking. Her testimony would help support those and also help support transportation to engage in prostitution. The prosecution needs her to testify, which is why I believe one of the reasons they wanted to testify so early is because she's eight and a half months, nine months pregnant. They got to make sure she gets on the stand before something happens. Now, you mentioned the text messages. This day was filled with text messages. Elizabeth, I'm going to ask you what we learned about these text messages.

I'll leave it to you how graphic you want to get about them if they're, I mean, depending upon what the value is, but what were the text messages, what were the value of the text messages, what was the defense doing with these text messages? And by the way, emails too. So communications between Combs and Ventura. Talk to us about that. Yeah, it was a lot of mess. messages today. A lot of things that were read inside that courtroom first starting off with messages that, or excuse me, first with Anna Maria Esteveo asking, or Esteveo, excuse me, asking Cassie, so you love Diddy. She said yes, and he loved you. She said, yes. You called him Sean. You

knew the real Sean. And Cassie said, can you repeat? And then along the lines answered the question that, you know, she knew the Sean that other people didn't see. When they started getting into the email correspondence and text correspondence, they went all of the. way back to 2008. One email that said, I'm a very lucky woman, and I'm going to kind of paraphrase this email because it was a lot going on. Cassie said, I'm a very lucky woman. I miss you, and I fly wherever you needed me too. I love you. And then she signed it off Cass. They showed a 2009 email that Diddy had written to Cassie, and this was the baby girl and the pop pop email correspondent and nicknames that they had had for one another. Diddy said, I love you so much.

It makes me cry. And then Cassie responded, you hungry, pop, pop, but you know. And so I think what the defense was trying to do, at least with these initial messages, is just kind of show that there was love and there was affection there. But just think about these timeframes and these dates. This was around the time that the two had first started dating. And I felt like it kind of played into what she had said under her direct testimony that she did care about, did he, that she did love him. She's been very honest about that, that the two were, that she felt like the two were in love.

love, especially at the beginning of her relationship. There was one message from 2010, Cassie wrote, going to sleep, so tomorrow will be faster and kind of saying tomorrow will be faster so I can see you soon. Diddy responded, I love you so much. I never knew it could be like this. Cassie responded, I'm so happy. We're so in love. There was another message, this one from the year prior, Cassie saying, I love you so much.

It made me feel like I can't wait until we just don't care anymore. And Cassie was pretty much saying that this was because she wanted to be open about the relationship because the defense was trying to point out that Cassie and Diddy for about a two-year period, they weren't as open with their relationship and that Cassie essentially just wanted to be public. Again, something that kind of corroborated her under direct testimony where she said that she just, you know, was in love with him and just wanted to be with him at all points all the time. A lot of just I love you back and forth. Again, just kind of trying to establish that these two were in love, that it wasn't forced or fraud or coerced or anything like that. Then we get to a message around August 5th of 2009. Diddy asked, when do you want to freak off?

Cassie said, I'm ready to freak off. L.O.L. Did he responded, you tell me the date, you choose. And then I'm paraphrasing right here. She had responded, I feel like a Friday would be best. Did he responded, also paraphrasing here. Friday it is. maybe we can get Jules here.

Jules was an escort that they had used very often in their free golfs, according to her testimony. He was brought up a number of times, and notably he was the escort that was inside that hotel room during the 2016 Intercontinental Hotel Incident. There were other messages that went into, Diddy had a subject line that said, What are you thinking about? And then Cassie responded in a very kind of sexually explicit way that I'm not going to repeat on air. You could definitely feel like I was kind of peeking into what their history was like, especially in those intimate moments and how the two would correspond about wanting to be with each other in an intimate way. And so a lot of those messages were displayed in front of the jury.

The jury saw them, us in the gallery. We saw these messages as well, too. There was a 2009 email that Diddy had wrote to Cassie saying, I want you to feel safe to let go. And Cassie wrote, I like that. I want to give you the same in order to be more open with the things that we do in bed. I need to feel safe like home. Like this is my husband and this is the only man that will ever have this aggressive slash sexual side of me. I'm nervous.

I'm just the girlfriend that you get your fantasies off with and that I just don't get that other part. And then she wrote dot, dot, dot anymore at least. And she kind of, you know, at least to me in my perspective, appeared a little apprehensive about doing these freakoffs. She was asked by the defense, you know, do you have a fear that you guys wouldn't go public, you guys being Cassie and Diddy? And she said, I guess she thought about this. Again, this is around that 2009 time frame when the two were still kind of under wraps there. But she said that the freakoffs were kind of an integral part of her relationship and that essentially she just wanted more.

There was a part where they had talked about her 21st birthday. Her 21st birthday is pretty important because that was the first time the two. had kissed with that's the first time that she had kissed ditty because remember she had met him two years prior to that time she said that this was again at her birthday um big names like a name that we had seen in the people in places um list from jury selection Dallas Austin was at her that birthday party Britney spears was at that birthday party and they were all brought by ditty um she was asked about her financial situation around that time and she said essentially she was doing well She was, you know, modeling.

She was doing other things. And then they kind of touched base a little bit about her prior relationship even before Diddy. And that was with a producer named Ryan Leslie. And around this time frame, because Cassie was still in a relationship with Ryan, at this time, the defense was trying to paint it as, you know, when you had met Ryan, he was 10 years older than you at this point of time. And I had kind of looked it up. The Diddy and Ryan Leslie aren't necessarily close. in age. I think Ryan Leslie's still in his mid-40s, whereas ditties in his mid-50s. So there's a little

bit there, but I could kind of see where the defense was trying to go and try to paint it as that you kind of get with older producers, with older men, men that could possibly kind of help you with your career. Then we saw an email from 2007 where Cassie had wrote, you know, we really had one week of each other just together, and I can say it's been the best and the worse. The defense asked her about her relationship with Diddy. Has it always been complicated? And she kind of affirmed that a little bit. She said she thought Diddy at first was actually more interested in her friend Carrie, Carrie Morgan, somebody that's been brought up a number of times during the testimony. And so as far as a lot of these messages, part of it when I was sitting inside the

gallery today, I was kind of like, where is this going? You know, they were just reading text after text after text. It was bunches of pages to the point. I think the judge was kind of like, why are we, we need to find like a better system of getting Cassie to read these messages so that way there's not a holdup because it was just so much messages

to the point where sometimes you were trying to connect the dots and wondering what's happening. And so the presentation was a little messy on my end, at least from what I could see, that I was just kind of like, where is this going? And there were just so many points that I felt like they could talk about

instead of these messages, But it seemed like they wanted to get in front of these messages, provide context that Cassie was actually in love, that at times that she had set up these freakoffs even on her own, at times when even Diddy was sick. And so these messages were just all over the place. And at points I was just kind of like, where is this going? Because it really was so much. So I don't know how the jury felt listening to all of these today, too. Well, I'll tell you, it seemed to me they were really trying to home in on the idea that she was a willing participant in the freakoffs.

and that the jury, are you really going to believe that she was essentially held captive against her will, didn't want to do any of this for years because she was under threat or coercion of Sean Combs and highlighting messages like, I'm always ready to freak off LOL or baby I want to FO so bad. You know, that's going to help their narrative and, you know, saying she was the one who tried to set these up or I believe there was a testimony she heated up the baby oil to be used in freakoffs. But there's a part of something that you said that I thought was really interesting. where it seems to me the defense was also trying to portray her as a jealous lover, right, and go to her motivations about why she would be going after Diddy now?

Talk to us about what we learned today from the cross-examination about how they tried to portray her, maybe with other interests that she had, other relationships, other relationships. Did he had, how did they try to portray her as somebody who was jealous and maybe had other motives for coming after, you know, accusing Diddy now? Well, they definitely brought up Kim Porter a couple of times today. Kim Porter is a big name because she is the mother of a few of Diddy's children, including the twins, including Christian. And so Cassie had said that she had learned that Diddy had actually left to freak off

to go see Kim Porter. Again, by this time, she was still the mother of his children. children. She admitted to being a little bit jealous of Diddy's relationship with Kim. And she said especially this kind of happened during the holiday time because Diddy always spent the holidays with Kim Porter with his children. Something that, you know, surprisingly, Cassie kind of mentioned that Diddy and Cassie didn't spend much time together with his children. Instead, the children were always with Kim Porter. And this was something that she was a little bit jealous of that she wanted to be around him and see. other or she wanted to be around him, be around his family and get all parts of him. And so, you know, she did admit that she was a little jealous. We learned about Gina today. Gina is another central figure a little bit. And I've done a couple segments about Gina because Gina had previously gone on a podcast and

spoken with a blogger talking about how her relationship with Diddy was where she had alleged that Diddy was physically abusive with Gina. She had alleged that Diddy would. referred to Cassie as the good one and Gina was the bad one. So hearing from Cassie's perspective about the whole Gina situation, Gina was somebody that, or excuse me, Gina was somebody that Diddy had seen while he was still with Cassie, somebody that was a focal point of, from her perspective, of the jealousy. And so Cassie had learned that Diddy was seeing Gina. Cassie learned about this because of social media. And she said that Diddy initially did.

denied seeing Gina, but learned that he was still seeing her during a point where she had told him to stop seeing her. And she called Gina actually a main problem in their relationship. And so this was around the 2013 time frame where Cassie said to Diddy, you make me feel like a side piece. I'm happy with you no matter what because Cassie thought she was the main girlfriend. She thought she was the only girlfriend. She didn't realize that he was seeing other people. She said that surprise or not even surprisingly. She said that he had. actually lost his temper when Diddy thought Cassie was cheating, but then when Cassie confronted Diddy about his cheating, it was like, you know, deny, deny.

Another point of contention between their relationship was that, you know, the two were on and off for an 11-year period. Cassie says that Diddy learn that she was seeing other people and she said that it would get scary if he would find out these situations and then enter and segue into Kid Cuddy. Surprisingly, they didn't talk about the car. at all today through it, but it was essentially to kind of talk about how Diddy was just so hurt and just so devastated by the fact that Cassie was seeing Kid Cuddy behind his back. The defense was trying to point out that Diddy was the one who actually introduced Cassie and Kid Cuddy to

one another because he was trying to get them in the studio together to pretty much kind of advanced her career. And this was around the 2011 time frame. Diddy found out about Cassie and Kid Cuddy. And she had said yesterday under direct examination that He had found out while they were in a freak off. Cassie says it was actually her idea to use a burner phone because she didn't want Diddy to find out, again, alluding to the fact that she was a little terrified and scared of what he could do, how he would respond. And she said that she began her relationship with Kid Cuddy at a point where she and Diddy were actually off. They were on a break, but she began a relationship with Kid Cuddy because the two were just enjoying each other's company. She said that she did admit that she was still doing freak-offs during this off period with Diddy,

but then she would kind of go and hang out with Kid Cuddy. Meanwhile, while all this is going on, she and Diddy are still on a break. And she again said that it was scary if he had found out. She was asked if Diddy knew that Cassie and Diddy were on a break, and she said that, I don't know. And then that's when the cross got a little awkward because they were trying to kind of figure it out a way. to kind of ask these questions. And I had mentioned this during the lunch hour today that it was just a little weird to kind of see

this cross-examination around this point because Esteveo was essentially just kind of adding or concurring with Teni Garagos, who was sitting at the defense table. I think a lot of us were kind of questioning why Esteveo was the one doing the line of questioning. You know, we understand, obviously, that the defense was going to use a female to ask Cassie these questions under cross. But I was just kind of like,

why is she conferring so much? It seemed like she didn't know what to ask next. And so that was an interesting point that I had seen while in the courtroom today. As far as just the Kid Cuddy relationship goes, you know, I had mentioned this just yesterday that when Diddy found out he got a bottle or a wine bottle opener, put it in between her finger, it's in between his fingers and lunged at her. But Cassie said that he had made no contact when he had lunged at her with the bottle opener. She said her relationship with Kid Cuddy all the entire time was just about.

a month and she got back together with Diddy. She was asked, was the relationship offensive to Diddy because of Kid Cuddy's stature in the music industry? And Cassie was kind of like, well, yeah, because Diddy wasn't cheating with other celebrities. And Cassie responded, I don't really know. The Kid Cuddy relationship hurt Diddy, according to the defense, because Diddy was the one who introduced them, put them in the studio together. And so they were, the defense was saying that Diddy brought up Kid Cuddy a lot after they got back. together and especially would become angry over the holidays. We're calling the Kid Cuddy relationship because this was around the Christmas time frame of 2011. Cassie had mentioned by New Year's, the two

were the two being Kid Cuddy and Cassie were already broken up. Did he accuse Cassie of having another relationship with another man while shooting a movie and that movie was Honey 3 and this was in South Africa? I bring back the people in places list that was talked about during jury selection. Why? Because this was when Michael B. Jordan was named. Diddy was apparently a little annoyed by the relationship that Cassie and Michael B. Jordan were having together while they were shooting this movie. And Cassie had even said around this time that she and Diddy weren't even together when she went off to shot the movie. She broke things off. Why?

Because she had seen a picture that he was still with Gina. She was sent a video about that while Diddy and Gina were seen at Rebolt Fest together because somebody thought that that was actually Cassie. And so Cassie had sent kind of a nasty message to Diddy's entire staff, staff that she thought were family, staff that she had thought had her back. But then when seeing these pictures, knowing that this was a point of contention in their relationship, she said she got upset about it because she thought the staff was her family and thought they were kind of in on this. And so those were a lot of the focus of just the other people who kind of played a role into just the tension that was displayed in the relationship between Cassie and Diddy. And yeah, they questioned, it seemed to me, a lot of her motivations they brought up the November 2023 lawsuit to suggest you knew this was going to ruin his career, right? Now, there was a large section of the testimony regarding drug use. And I couldn't tell if it was to suggest that, hey,

Combs isn't responsible for your drug use, you know? One of the things he's charged with, right, is alleged he used drugs to make victims more compliant drug trafficking. One of the underlying crimes of racketeering and and i'm curious how they had that whole conversation regarding drugs was it just to suggest you know she had a drug issue herself that was her own problem or was it also to suggest hey he had a drug problem and that explains a lot of his behavior which i if i understood it correctly is interesting because i'm not sure i quite understood where they were going with that i have an idea of where they were going with that maybe to away some of his actions that they originally said were indefensible. So talk to us about

what we know about all the drug use. What was the conversation about that? What was she questioned about? Yeah, the drug use was also pretty prominent, especially during the afternoon portion. She was questioned, and I feel like the questioning along the lines, to your point, Jesse was trying to paint her out to be kind of this drug-addicted person during the time frame. They were questioning her, did she use drugs when she was with Diddy? Did she use drugs without Did she use drugs when she was with her friends? Oh, do you not remember these questions or these answers because you were addicted to drugs around that time period? And so there was a point where Cassie had said that there was a time that Diddy didn't want Cassie to do drugs, even though she still was or even though that Diddy still was.

The defense says Diddy didn't want you hanging out with a certain friend. Her friend's name was Bonna. Bonna is also a pretty important name into this story. covered her when she had filed her civil claim against Diddy. Bonna was allegedly hung on or hung outside of a balcony by Diddy when he was going through a rage period, something that Cassia talked about in her direct testimony to yesterday. And the defense was trying to say, well, you and Bona, you guys did a lot of drugs together. And Cassie at this time was saying, you know, she was doing opioids.

Meanwhile, Bona, according to Cassie, provided these drugs like opioids. Meanwhile, Bona did cocaine, according to Cassie. Cassie had said that Diddy was pretty explosive when he found out that Cassie was taking his drugs. And Did he had actually contacted drug dealers not to give drugs to Cassie at this point. The defense was trying to paint it out that Diddy was just worried about her health and that she was taking a lot of drugs, drugs including ketamine. GHB, MDMA, Ecstasy. They talked about the Cannes Film Festival trip where Diddy had squeezed Cassie's legs so hard that a bruise appeared on her whenever she was taking pictures on red carpets.

And he had squeezed her legs so hard according to Cassie because she had taken drugs from, she had taken drugs from him. And then there was an interesting point that was talked about in 2013 where the defense was saying that Did he overdosed on drugs after a, freak off did he was hosting a party at a playboy mansion cassie had to actually take him into the hospital and that's when cassie had learned that he had overdosed there are a lot of points just in throughout her testimony today where again the defense was trying to ask do you remember when this happened and she would respond i don't necessarily recall and then the defense would ask is it because you're on drugs during this period and she was very forthcoming you know i i did have a problem she did try to seek out help a couple of times and then she just kind of went back to

again, that same kind of lifestyle. But to her point, during her direct testimony, she was saying that she used these drugs to cope with just having to do these hundreds and hundreds of freak off, some that would last for days at a time, some that could last for a long period of time. But I thought it was interesting the whole drug conversation today, mainly because they even discussed withdrawing from drugs, especially because of the amount of drugs that both Cassie and both Diddy were taking and even kind of insinuating. that the reason that everything had happened at the 2016 and or happened at the intercontinental

hotel in 2016 was because just a few days earlier than that did he was sick and they were saying they being the defense was trying to paint it as did he was sick because he was going through withdrawals and that made him agitated that made him irritated meanwhile at the same point they were trying to say cassie was insinuating doing these freakoffs kind of making it seem like she was asking for what had happened to her as far as just him being so aggrateful. aggressive and violence with her because again, we've all seen that surveillance video, but I definitely think the defense was trying to paint it as did he was going through withdrawals at this point. And that's why he became agitated and irritated. And that's why he

had attacked her on that day. It's something that, you know, it shocked everyone when we had seen that video. Still shocking, seeing it inside that courtroom. They didn't show it today during the cross-examination, but they definitely were talking about the 26th teen incident, especially towards the end of the day today. Yeah, I don't quite buy that one, right? The idea he was going through withdrawal kind of explains what happened in 2016. Didn't you say in the opening statement that video was indefensible? I feel like they might have stretched a little bit too much there.

But look, the text messages, the conversations, communications, not ideal for a prosecution case. Not the end of the case, but not ideal for a prosecution case. So it's kind of a mixed bag in terms of how much the cross-examination helped the defense. I will say, I thought it was interesting real quick on this, Elizabeth. Didn't they say, hey, you know how the prosecution was insinuating? Diddy had all control over every aspect of her life, including her appearance. Well, the defense didn't they seem to suggest, no, there might have been a legitimate feedback he was giving, right? Yeah, definitely.

They were trying to paint Diddy kind of talking about his stature within the industry. essentially saying that, you know, Diddy was somebody who had a lot of rain in terms of the culture. A lot of people sought out his advice. A lot of people went to him for fashion advice. So they were trying to make it seem that, you know, Cassie, from her perspective, was saying that Diddy controlled every single aspect and manipulated every single aspect of her entire life. Meanwhile, the defense was trying to say, I mean, look, it wasn't just you going to Diddy for fashion advice. It was other people who were interested in taking fashion advice from him, Because, again, of just how big his stature was at the time, they were saying that he had did so much for the culture and that he, you know, started a line like the Sean John line.

And that was a very popular fashion line. And so the defense was, again, trying to make it seem that this wasn't manipulation. He didn't control what you wore. But you had asked him, you know, do I look good in this? What do you think of this outfit? And so, yes, to your point, Jesse, the defense was definitely trying to poke those holes into where the. they needed to poke them to kind of make the argument that this wasn't manipulation, this wasn't coercion, and this was something that two people just do normally in a relationship

together. So that brings us now to scheduling, right? So we are not done with the cross-examination. It's going to continue tomorrow, but Judge Arun Suburbanian not happy about this, right? So two things I want to end on here. Talk to us about what the whole conversation was in court about actually scheduling Cassandra Ventura's testimony. And I believe we may have an answer as to who is going to be the next witness, who is a major witness in this case. Talk to us about it. I definitely think so. So during the lunch hour, I was talking about how the defense was saying that they needed an entire day of more cross-examination to a point that they could carry this all the way out into Monday. This was something that the government was this.

visibly annoyed about because they were like, you know, we had had this scheduling talks for weeks, not even just weeks, but months. And they were trying to make the argument, they being the government, that they had known all along that Cassie needed to be off the stand by the end of the week. So they didn't appreciate that the defense was trying to drag this over into Monday. And so they came up with a solution, essentially, and just that they believe that the cross-examination beginning tomorrow will take up half the day, should wrap around the lunch. hour. So still a few more hours of cross-examination to go through. As far as the redirect goes,

the government affirmed today that the redirect may take no more than about 30 minutes or less. And so it looks like Cassie will finally be off the stand tomorrow. If everything goes as planned, you just never know sometimes with the trial how long that these things can go. But yes, another big witness is being teed up kind of as we speak. And the government asked today, do we even need to bring in other witnesses tomorrow, tomorrow being Friday? And the judge was like, yes, get your other witnesses ready. And one of those big witnesses I can definitely say is going to be Don Rashard, somebody who had filed civil claims against Ditties, somebody who had worked with Diddy for a number of years. She had worked for not even a number of years, for decades even.

Somebody that Diddy himself, when the civil suit was filed, called her a friend and essentially said that he was disappointed that she had even filed the civil claim against him. And so the prosecution said today that she would be one of the. the next witnesses is to be testifying against Diddy. And so it'll be interesting to see kind of how that'll all play out. And so she should be one of the next witnesses. If she's not directly after Cassie, she'll be the following witness for sure. Yeah. And Elizabeth, I don't know if you have the answer to this. I'm not entirely sure. Is Dawn Rashard one of the named alleged victims in this case? I say name. They're all using pseudonyms, except for, you know, Cassandra Ventura and maybe one other. Do we know if she's one of the alleged victims in this case that makes up sex trafficking

or racketeering or anything like that? I'm not necessarily sure, and that's mainly because when the prosecution was giving their opening statements, they had talked about the alleged victims, one being Cassie, one being Jane, that we presume to be alleged victim number two, and then they were even talking about Mia, somebody who had worked for Diddy for a while, somebody that according to. To the prosecution, Diddy allegedly sexually assaulted this sexually assaulted via while the two had worked together because she was somebody on her staff. So I'm not entirely sure if Don Richard is one of the victims that have been talked about, especially in the superseding indictment. But I definitely think she'll also be a very key witness and kind of piecing together her decades-long friendship that she had had with Diddy as well as just kind of how he was even just in a business aspect and a professional aspect.

but that's well, too. And I think she was a witness to some of the allegations of Cassandra Ventura. And if I'm right about that, that goes to further corroboration. So it's not just the security guard who testified. It's not just the male performer who testified. Now you'd have Dawn Richard, who I think I'm right, right? I think she had testified. I think she had alleged before that she witnessed alleged abuse of Cassie at the hands of Sean

Combs. Yeah, she did. And her civil claim, she alleged that she had seen Cassie with visible injuries on herself. She had said to Cassie that, according to her civil claim, that she had just wanted Cassie to be safe, essentially. She had said that she saw one instance where she was at Diddy's home. Cassie was cooking breakfast and Diddy threw a hot frying pan at her head. And so I definitely think she will be another central figure in kind of verifying Cassie's claim. especially the physical abuse that she endured.

Not so much, I believe, about the freak-offs and that extent, but definitely as far as the physical abuse goes, I think she'll be another key witness to kind of verify Cassie's claims. And that would make sense she didn't know about it because what we heard today was Cassandra Ventura was not very open about these freak-offs until she ultimately filed her lawsuit. Elizabeth Milner, thank you so much, as always, giving us play-by-play, detail-by- detail of what happened

in that courtroom. You are our eyes and ears. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. Really appreciate it. Thanks, Jesse. And that is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.