Cassie Ventura’s mother wasn’t on the stand long Tuesday in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex-trafficking trial, but she certainly offered a damning glimpse of the violent and manipulative, self-described “toxic relationship” her daughter had with Combs for more than a decade – and how costly it was literally and figuratively.
Coming into court after the conclusion of mixed testimony from Combs’ former assistant David James, Regina Ventura told jurors today that “I was scared for my daughter’s safety” during the 2007-2018 period the “Me & U” singer and Diddy were together on and off.
Under questioning from the prosecution this morning and with Combs seated nearby in his courtroom sweater and button-down look, the Ventura matriarch explained her response came after her daughter alarmingly emailed her just before Christmas 2011. During this time, Ventura had broken things off with Combs and was in a semi-secret relationship with rapper/actor Kid Cudi (aka Scott Mescudi) to the mini-mogul’s clear displeasure, as Judge Arun Subramanian and the jury has heard several times since this trial started May 12.
Read aloud in the Lower Manhattan courtroom by the elder Ventura, that December 23, 2011 correspondence from Cassie Ventura to her mother said: “The threats that have been made towards me by Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs are that he is going to release 2 explicit sex tapes of me. One on Christmas Day, maybe before or right after and another one sometime soon after that. He has also said that he will be having someone hurt me and Scott Mescudi physically.”
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and Cassie Ventura
Getty
Kicked off in a large degree due to the quickly settled ($20 million) abuse and assault suit Cassie Ventura filed against Combs in November 2023, the criminal trial of the much-accused Combs officially began when the “I Need A Girl” performer was arrested in September 2024 on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and more. If found guilty in what has already been a sordid trial after just one week and amid rumors of his entourage angling for a pardon from Donald Trump, the 55-year-old Diddy likely faces life behind bars.
Today, Regina Ventura told the judge, jury and onlookers that she felt “physically sick” when she got the December 2011 email. That reaction intensified when her daughter arrived home in Connecticut for the holidays and the elder Ventura says she saw up-close the bruises and wounds on her body – allegedly from a beating by Combs. “She was bruised, and I wanted to make sure that we memorialized it,” Regina Ventura added of her decision to take photos of Cassie.
The jury was shown the photos in court.
“The sex tapes threw me,” the elder Ventura also said Tuesday. “I did not know the other person, but I knew that he was going to try to hurt my daughter.”
To that, enraged that Cassie Ventura was with Kid Cudi at that point, Combs supposedly contacted Ventura’s parents to demand payment to “recoup money” he said had spent on his then former and future girlfriend.
Specifically, the multi-millionaire Combs wanted $20,000 from the Venturas, ASAP. The Venturas arranged quickly to get a home equity loan to meet Combs’ demand.
“That’s the only way we could get the money,” the mother of two told the court today.
With instructions from Combs’ staff, the cash was wired to him that holiday season. Oddly, around New Year’s Eve, the $20,000 was wired back with no explanation. Once Combs and Cassie Ventura were back together it was never mentioned, the elder Ventura testified.
Set to handle the cross-examination of Regina Ventura, defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo kept it very short. ““I don’t have any questions for you,” the attorney said, and the elder Ventura left the stand and the courtroom soon afterwards.
RELATED: Sean “Diddy” Combs OD’d In 2012, Sex-Trafficking Trial Learns As Defense Tries To Shift Narrative To Drug Abuse & Jealousy In Cassie Ventura Cross-Examination
Regina Ventura was followed in the witness box by Sharay Hayes. The male escort who was first hired by Combs and Cassie Ventura for a “freak-off” in New York in late 2021 made an appearance in the trial last week when his photograph was put up on the courtroom screens as one of the half-a-dozen male escorts brought on board repeatedly for “freak-offs” over the years. Perhaps more tellingly, Hayes went by the moniker “the Punisher.”
Deftly trying to get in front of the feds’ claims of a criminal enterprise of drug-fueled and frequently filmed “freak-off’ sex marathons, male escorts, blackmail, coercion and relentless violence, the defense team led by Agnifilo, Teny Geragos Brian Steel in its opening statement acknowledged Combs has committed domestic violence, is a drug user and is not the greatest guy. However, Geragos stressed in her pitch to the jury that those doesn’t make him guilty of the charges the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York have filed.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs physically assaulting Cassie Ventura in 2016
CNN
Another element of the defense’s strategy is to taint Ventura and other accusers and witnesses as being essentially gold diggers or star f*ckers looking to get ahead. Revelations like the May 16 one that Ventura is getting a $10 million settlement from LA’s InterContinental Hotel, where security footage from March 2016 captured Combs beating her, added to that narrative.
Simultaneously, with his much-mentioned allegedly enabling inner circle not defendants in this case, Combs faces dozens of civil cases detailing similar stories of drugs, violence, rape and more. Repeatedly denied bail and incarcerated in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center since last fall, Combs has insisted the only thing he is guilty of is having an unconventional lifestyle with other consenting adults, regardless of what the police, the Department of Justice, ex-staffers, or under oath accusers like Cassie Ventura says.
Still, as the defense’s decision this morning to decline cross-examination of Regina Ventura made clear, sometimes it is best to walk away to save yourself from things not going your way.
Running from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. ET daily for the un-sequestered jury, Combs’ sex-trafficking trial is anticipated to last eight to 10 weeks.
