Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial updates: Cassie Ventura takes the stand

Cassie Ventura took the witness stand Tuesday to testify against her ex-boyfriend, Sean Combs, at his racketeering and sex trafficking trial.

“The government calls Cassandra Ventura,” prosecutor Emily Johnson said.

Ventura, 38, who is pregnant, entered court in a tight-fitting brown dress.

Federal prosecutors said Combs used lies, drugs, threats and violence to force and coerce Ventura into having sexual encounters with male prostitutes.

This is the first time Ventura and Combs are seeing one another in person since their 2018 split, the defense said yesterday.

Defense attorney Teny Geragos said during opening statements that Ventura broke off her relationship with Combs after she heard him call Kim Porter his soulmate at Porter’s funeral.

“When Combs publicly said Kim Porter was his soulmate to all the people around him who were there, for the first time maybe ever, Cassie realized all the things she would not be,” Geragos said.

Sean Combs' ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura has taken the stand to testify in the trial against the music mogul.

After male escort Daniel Phillip told the jury Monday that he saw “Sean Combs hit Cassie,” a defense attorney today questioned whether he embellished the account to make Combs seem more callous.

Phillip testified that after a sexual encounter at Ventura’s residence, Combs threw a bottle toward her and “grabbed her by her hair and dragged her by her hair into the bedroom” after she did not immediately get up from a computer to go into the bedroom as he instructed. Phillip said Combs emerged from the bedroom a while later to ask Phillip, “Are you guys ready to continue?”

On cross-examination today, defense attorney Xavier Donaldson questioned whether Combs said something else.

“Isn’t it true he said, ‘You got to get out of here?’” Donaldson asked.

“I don’t recall that,” Phillip responded.

“’Yo man, I’m going to have to deal with this you need to get the f--- out?’” Donaldson quoted Combs as saying.

When Phillip responded that was not what Combs said, Donaldson confronted him with a December 2023 law enforcement report from an interview agents conducted with Phillip.

“Mr. Combs told you ‘Yo man, get the f--- out,’” Donaldson insisted.

“I do not recall that,” Phillip replied. “I do not remember saying that.”

On re-direct examination by the prosecution, Phillip sought to clarify his statement.

“I recall him coming out of the room and trying to get us to have sex again,” Phillip said. “I just recall him asking us if we’re ready to go.”

“And what did you understand that to mean?” prosecutor Maureen Comey asked.

“If we’re ready to have sex again,” Phillip answered.

“I was completely shocked and messed up in my head,” Phillips said, at which point, he said, Combs told him to leave.

“Is Sean Combs the same man who threw a liquor bottle across the room when Ms. Ventura told him to wait a minute?” Comey asked.

“Yes,” Phillip responded.

Sean Combs entered court Tuesday wearing the same, or similar, white collared shirt, light-colored pullover and khaki pants. He waved to his family in the second row.

A federal prosecutor prepared the court for what’s to come when Cassie Ventura is expected to take the witness stand later today.

“There are videos,” the prosecutor, Emily Johnson, said.

Johnson promised jurors in her opening statement Monday that they would “see videos of some of the freak-offs, the videos the defendant used to blackmail Cassie and to blackmail 'Jane,'” the latter referring to an anonymous alleged second victim.

On those videos, Johnson told jurors they would hear Combs providing direction to Cassie and "Jane," and the women complying.

Daniel Phillip, an escort who testified Monday that he was paid as much as $6,000 each time he had sex with Ventura while Combs sat in the corner masturbating, returned to the witness stand Tuesday to resume cross-examination.

On cross-examination, Monday defense attorney Xavier Donaldson sought to downplay Combs’ role in the first alleged sexual encounter at the Gramercy Park Hotel.