Sordid sex marathons featuring gallons of baby oil. Physical abuse so savage that the victim was left bleeding and vomiting. A threat to blow up a romantic rival’s car.
Casandra Ventura’s testimony against Sean Combs, the music mogul who was her longtime boyfriend, during the first week of his criminal trial in Manhattan federal court was a depiction of untrammeled decadence. It spared neither the defendant nor the witness herself.
Ms. Ventura’s account of a life defined by Mr. Combs’s desires came in the early stage of what is expected to be an eight-week trial. Her testimony was a first step toward convincing the jury that Mr. Combs was not merely an abusive lover, but the leader of a criminal enterprise that carried out the sex trafficking of three women and committed arson, kidnapping and other crimes dating to 2004.
Whether a jury sees Mr. Combs as merely a violent voyeur or a criminal kingpin depends on more than shock value.
“You can be guilty of sins and not crimes,” said Donna Rotunno, a defense lawyer who represented Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood producer, at his first sex-abuse trial.
In a trial that will feature more witness testimony and reams of other evidence, potentially including videos of Mr. Combs’s sex parties, the government will now build on the foundation provided by its star witness.
Ms. Ventura, 38, known just as Cassie, met Mr. Combs in 2005, when she was 19. She signed a 10-album deal with his label, Bad Boy, and in 2006 released her debut single, “Me & U.”
Soon after she signed, Ms. Ventura began dating Mr. Combs, the start of a relationship that was on-and-off until 2018. Its turbulent nature became public in 2023, when Ms. Ventura accused Mr. Combs of rape and physical abuse in a federal lawsuit. In May 2024, CNN broadcast a 2016 video of Mr. Combs assaulting her at a hotel.
“The purpose of her testimony is to set the stage for the case, the emotional stage for the case, and the overall contours of the charged crimes,” said Rachel Maimin, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.
Mr. Combs, 55, is charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He could face life in prison.
Ms. Ventura painted a damning portrait of the man who millions of people came to know as “Diddy,” “P. Diddy,” “Puff Daddy” and the other monikers he adopted while cycling through identities. She depicted Mr. Combs as coercing her to play out his fantasies, including by paying male escorts to have sex with her at parties he called “freak-offs” while he watched. He was, she said, prone to violent outbursts.
The freak-offs, Ms. Ventura testified, were drug-fueled marathons that could last from 36 hours to four days. She said that they left her so drained that she needed days to recover. She said she had agreed to participate out of fear that Mr. Combs would become violent.
“His eyes go black,” Ms. Ventura testified. “The version of him that I was in love with was no longer there.”
Mr. Combs’s lawyers have conceded that their client was a troubled man, one who committed domestic violence and was prone to jealous rages. But they said his transgressions did not meet the definition of the federal charges he faces, and that he was being penalized for his private sex life.
“He is not charged with being a jerk,” said Teny Geragos, a lawyer for Mr. Combs. “He is charged with running a racketeering enterprise.”
Mr. Combs is one of the best-known figures in the history of hip-hop. As a rapper, producer and record executive, he was a constant presence in music and celebrity culture for decades. His elaborate “White Parties” were a hot ticket, with figures like Leonardo DiCaprio, Donald J. Trump and Al Sharpton attending.
Yet as he rose to an elite level of American celebrity, Mr. Combs was dogged by accusations of violence and abuse. In the 1990s, he faced allegations of beating a rival executive. He promoted an event at a Harlem gymnasium where nine young people were crushed to death, and he later helped settle a civil case. In 2001, he was acquitted of bribery and gun charges in connection with a shooting at a Manhattan nightclub.
Some observers said that Ms. Ventura’s testimony had provided nearly everything needed to convict Mr. Combs on sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.
Moira Penza, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York, said Ms. Ventura’s testimony helped prove that the acts were coerced and commercial, as the federal sex trafficking statute requires.
Ms. Ventura said that male escorts were paid thousands of dollars to have sex with her, and that she was fearful of Mr. Combs releasing blackmail videos of freak-offs she participated in.
“Just on Cassie’s testimony, the prosecution is basically there on proving the crimes,” Ms. Penza said.
Racketeering conspiracy cases involve typically several defendants, because the law they are based on is usually used against criminal enterprises with a hierarchy.
Yet, like Mr. Combs, the singer R. Kelly was a single defendant when he was charged with leading a scheme that lured women and underage girls for sex. Mr. Kelly was convicted of racketeering in 2021.
Elizabeth Geddes, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York who prosecuted Mr. Kelly, said the racketeering law encompasses what Ms. Ventura has already described.
If more evidence emerges about Mr. Combs’s associates paying for escorts, she added, the case would be even stronger.
“All of that facilitation by others will be used by the prosecutors to say, ‘Sean Combs could not have carried out the acts by himself,’” Ms. Geddes said.
How the jury interprets Ms. Ventura’s returning to Mr. Combs even after she said he raped and violently assaulted her, could be critical, legal experts said.
Some legal observers said the defense made an effective argument by saying that Mr. Combs, while an imperfect man who committed domestic violence, did not run a criminal enterprise and was on trial for sexual acts that many might find depraved, but that were consensual.
In cross-examining Ms. Ventura on Thursday, Mr. Combs’s lawyers presented messages in which Ms. Ventura expressed affection for Mr. Combs and enthusiasm about the parties. One message, written in 2009 from Ms. Ventura to Mr. Combs, said “I’m always ready to freak off lolol.”
“For Cassie, she made a choice every single day for years, a choice to stay with him, a choice to fight for him,” Ms. Geragos said during the defense’s opening statements.
One thing to watch, Ms. Penza said, is whether prosecutors calls an expert witness to testify about victims of sexual violence who might address why Ms. Ventura would stay with Mr. Combs.
“This is where expert testimony is going to be important, because sex crime victims often behave in ways that seem unreasonable,” Ms. Penza said.
Ms. Rotunno, Mr. Weinstein’s onetime lawyer, said Ms. Ventura’s testimony may have shown that Mr. Combs was guilty of domestic violence or even sex by force. It did not, she said, prove the federal charges he was facing.
Lara Yeretsian, a criminal defense lawyer in the Los Angeles area, said Ms. Ventura’s testimony was part of a strategy to portray Mr. Combs in such a negative light that jurors would be compelled to convict him.
But, Ms. Yeretsian added, it could backfire if jurors believed the government was trying to hoodwink them with shocking accounts of depravity.
“The jury might say, ‘OK, great, he was a bad person,” she said. “He’s a girlfriend beater. But that doesn’t make him guilty of the charges.’”
