Cassie emotionally recounted allegedly being raped by ex-boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs during the mogul’s sex trafficking trial.
During the singer’s testimony on Wednesday, May 14, Cassie, 38, recalled a dinner she had with Diddy, 55, in 2018 after she had already begun dating her now-husband, Alex Fine.
After Diddy brought Cassie (real name Casandra Ventura) home following the dinner, she said he allegedly “raped me in my living room.”
“I just remember crying and saying no, but it was very fast,” she recalled.
Cassie said she and Diddy had sex “by choice” one other time after the end of their relationship, pointing to the couple’s history together. (Cassie and Diddy dated off and on from 2007 to 2018.)
“You don’t just turn feelings off that way,” she said. “I still had a good vision of who he was as a person.”
After the relationship ended for good, Cassie explained she and Diddy would keep in touch sporadically.
In March 2019, Diddy allegedly sent her a text referencing “iPads full of skeletons,” which Cassie believed was an ominous threat about explicit tapes they had made together.
Cassie further claimed Diddy “wanted his money back” for personal training sessions with Fine, who Cassie married in September 2019.
“It’s way deeper than iPads,” Cassie responded, saying she had the power to tell “the whole nature of the relationship.”
Cassie became emotional when she discussed her decision to attend rehab and trauma therapy in 2023.
“I was spinning out,” she said. “I didn’t want to be alive anymore at that point.”
After returning home from shooting a music video, Cassie recalled telling Fine, “You can do this without me. You don’t need me anymore.” She said she attempted to walk into traffic, but Fine stopped her.
Cassie described her relationship with Diddy during the first day of her testimony on Tuesday, May 13, claiming it was marked by violence.
“There were violent arguments that would usually result in some sort of physical abuse,” she told the court. “Dragging, different things of that nature.” When the prosecution asked Cassie how often Diddy physically assaulted her, she replied, “Too frequently.”
The singer noted that she participated in Diddy’s “freak offs” because she “loved him very much,” but admitted it “eventually it became a job for me, pretty much.”
Ahead of her testimony, pregnant Cassie was spotted heading to New York City’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse on Tuesday with husband Alex Fine. (Cassie and Fine announced earlier this year that they are expecting their third child.)
One day before her appearance, both sides shared in opening statements that allegations made by Cassie and an unnamed Jane Doe would be the primary focus of the proceedings. Fine was present for the first day of testimony.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson alleged on Monday, May 12, that Cassie once overdosed at a freak off where a sex worker urinated in her mouth. “She tried the first freak off because she loved the defendant and wanted to make him happy,” the lawyer continued. Jane Doe, meanwhile, allegedly believed that her first freak off was a “one-time wild night.”
After Johnson’s opening statement, Diddy’s attorney Teny Geragos said, “Sean Combs is a complicated man, but this is not a complicated case.” While Geragos admitted that Diddy has a history of violence, she claimed no witness could back up the government’ racketeering charges because there was no racketeering conspiracy.
Witness Daniel Phillip testified on Monday that he was paid from $700 to $5,000 or $6,000 to be intimate with Cassie while Diddy was present and “always sitting in a corner masturbating.”
Israel Florez, a former security guard at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles, also testified on Monday and recalled an incident where Diddy assaulted Cassie in 2016. Florez testified that Diddy was in a “devilish state,” while claiming that Cassie looked “scared.”
News broke in September 2024 that Diddy was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and has denied all of the allegations against him.
“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Diddy’s attorney Marc Agnifilo said in a statement at the time. “He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal. To his credit Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”
Diddy has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since his arrest. His four requests for bail were denied by Judge Arun Subramanian.
Nearly one year before his arrest, Cassie filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual and physical abuse throughout their relationship. The mogul denied her claims in a statement shared by his attorney.
“Mr. Combs vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations,” Diddy’s lawyer Ben Brafman said at the time.
One day after the lawsuit was filed, Diddy and Cassie settled out of court. In May 2024, CNN shared a hotel surveillance video of Diddy kicking and grabbing Cassie in 2016 — which he later apologized for in a video shared via Instagram.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support. If you or someone you know is a human trafficking victim, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
