By Maggy Donaldson, AFP
Casandra Ventura and Sean Combs attend an event in New York on May 1, 2017. Photo: MIKE COPPOLA
Please note: This story contains details of domestic violence and sex abuse
Sean "Diddy" Combs's former partner Casandra Ventura told jurors at the music mogul's sex trafficking trial on Tuesday (US time) how he "controlled" her life and brutally beat her to keep her in line.
Jurors have heard accusations that the hip-hop star used violence and threats of reputational ruin to manipulate women, including Ventura, whom he allegedly abused for years.
"Sean controlled a lot of my life - whether it was (my) career, the way I dressed," said Ventura, who is heavily pregnant and will take regular breaks from her graphic testimony that could last several days.
"He had many resources" to potentially use compromising sexual videos of Ventura to exploit the celebrated singer and model, she said, pausing to dab her eye with a tissue.
"He would mash me in my head, knock me over, drag me, kick me, stomp me on the head if I was down," she said, her voice shaking at points.
In a hotel surveillance clip from March 2016 shown to jurors on Monday, Combs is apparently seen brutally beating and dragging Ventura - widely known as "Cassie" - down a hallway.
A former security officer at a Los Angeles-area InterContinental hotel, Israel Florez, told the court on Monday that he was first on the scene after the incident and that Combs sought to pay him off.
Florez's testimony provided the foundation for the prosecution to introduce the security footage that was published by CNN last year.
The panel of 12 jurors and six alternates responsible for determining Combs's fate heard of the famed artist's explosive outbursts and an attempt to preserve his own reputation and celebrity through bribery.
But the 55-year-old's defence team insisted while some of his behaviour was questionable - at times constituting domestic abuse - it did not amount to evidence of racketeering and sex trafficking with which he is charged.
Sean Combs at a music awards event in Las Vegas on May 15, 2022. Photo: AFP/ NurPhoto / Image Press Agency
'Coercive and criminal' -
Combs has pleaded not guilty on all counts, including the racketeering charge that the hip-hop pioneer led a sex crime ring that included drug-fuelled sex parties by use of force, threats and violence.
Prosecutor Emily Johnson told jurors Combs had set a man's car ablaze and dangled a woman from a balcony, and made impossible demands of his lovers and employees.
"Let me be clear," US attorney Johnson said, "this case is not about a celebrity's private sexual preferences.
"It's coercive and criminal."
But Combs's defence lawyer Teny Geragos told jurors the "case is about love, jealousy and infidelity and money".
Geragos called Combs's accusers "capable, strong adult women," and said his situation with Ventura was a "toxic relationship" but "between two people who loved each other".
"Being a willing participant in your own sex life is not sex trafficking," she said, adding that the defence would admit there was domestic violence - but that Combs is not charged with such crimes.
Florez's testimony was followed by a male dancer who engaged in a sexual relationship, often in exchange for money, with Combs and Ventura from 2012 to approximately the end of 2013. He concluded his testimony on Tuesday.
Ventura said of the so-called "freak-off" sex parties that she was "just in love and wanted to make (Combs) happy - to a point I didn't feel like I had much of a choice".
Combs's defence team said they would seek to emphasise that Ventura took drugs of her own free will, and behaved erratically.
If convicted, the one-time rap producer and global superstar, who is often credited for his role in bringing hip-hop into the mainstream, could spend the rest of his life in prison.
The proceedings are expected to last eight to 10 weeks, and Combs was joined in the courthouse by family members as well as former lovers including Misa Hylton.
-AFP
