NEW YORK (AP) — Some of Sean “Diddy” Combs ’ ex-employees took a central role in the third week of his sex trafficking trial, including personal assistants who testified that the hip-hop mogul was capricious, controlling and violent.
The week began with Capricorn Clark, a personal assistant who was later a global brand director for Combs’ company. She recalled witnessing Combs beating his longtime girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, and said he raged about wanting to kill rapper and romantic rival Kid Cudi.
It ended with another ex-assistant, testifying under the pseudonym “Mia,” who alleges Combs raped her during a torturous eight-year tenure working for the rap star. She is the second of three women expected to testify that he sexually assaulted them. Combs has pleaded not guilty.
The trial resumes Monday in federal court in Manhattan.
Here are key moments from Week 3:
Ex-Combs aide says fear stopped her from calling police
Former employees of Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment described repeatedly witnessing him beat Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, but said they didn’t report the abuse to law enforcement because they feared Combs would harm them.
Clark testified that the day she started as Combs’ personal assistant in 2004, he threatened he would kill her if her previous work for rival rappers interfered with her work for him.
Then, she testified, she watched in shock as Combs viciously assaulted Cassie, his on-again, off-again girlfriend for more than a decade, in 2011 after learning she was dating Cudi. Clark said her “heart was breaking from seeing her get hit like that,” and neither she nor Combs’ bodyguard intervened.
She said she called Cassie’s mother and told her: “Please help her. I can’t call the police, but you can.”
Weeks later, Clark said, she reported what happened to Cassie to the president of Bad Boy Records.
She also testified about her own run-ins with Combs, telling jurors that he kidnapped her at gunpoint and took her to Cudi’s house as he fumed that he was going to kill the rapper. Cudi testified that he believed Cassie and Combs had broken up. He said his relationship with Cassie only lasted a few weeks.
Clark said she stayed in Combs’ SUV while he broke into the home. She said she was fired weeks later for what she contends was a trumped-up reason.
Cassie delivers her third child after testifying for four days
One of the week’s biggest developments came outside the courtroom. Cassie, 38, delivered her third child less than two weeks after testifying for four days as the prosecution’s prize witness.
The news of her son’s birth Tuesday reached the jury the next day when Cassie’s longtime stylist, Deonte Nash, testified that he was still close to Cassie and had sent her well wishes after the birth.
Cassie, known for the platinum-selling 2006 hit single “Me & U,” married personal trainer Alex Fine in September 2019 — about a year after breaking up with Combs for good. Their first daughter, Frankie Stone Fine, was born in 2019. They welcomed a second daughter, Sunny Cinco Fine, in 2021.
Attacks on Kid Cudi’s property put law enforcement on the stand
Jurors heard from a Los Angeles police officer who responded to the December 2011 break-in at Cudi’s home and an arson investigator who spoke about his efforts to solve the firebombing of Cudi’s Porsche 911 weeks later.
Officer Chris Ignacio said he found Christmas gifts, some opened, with luxury watches and purses. Cudi has testified that his dog was traumatized after being locked in a bathroom by intruders.
Ignacio said he saw a car with tinted windows registered to Bad Boy outside the house but didn’t approach it because he had no proof a crime had occurred.
Prosecutors are trying to prove that Combs was behind the break-in and the subsequent firebombing, which involved a Molotov cocktail dropped through a hole sliced in the convertible’s fabric roof.
Lance Jimenez, a Los Angeles Fire Department arson investigator, said the explosive was made from a 40-ounce Olde English 800 malt liquor bottle and a silky designer handkerchief.
“I personally felt it was targeted,” he said of the Jan. 9, 2012, attack.
A stylist delivers answers from the witness stand like nobody else
Celebrity stylist Deonte Nash was a witness like no other, adding flair and humor within seconds of taking the stand on Wednesday. Asked if he wanted to testify, he declared: “Absolutely not!”
Nash said he knew Combs as “Puff” and Cassie as “Cass.” He said he responded to a Craigslist ad and started working at Bad Boy Entertainment as an intern and then a stylist from 2008 to 2018.
Prosecutor Maurene Comey put a picture of Nash in front of him and asked, “Is it a glamour shot of you?”
“Yes. I look amazing,” Nash responded, drawing laughs.
Asked what he had heard Combs call Cassie over the years, Nash answered “Um, Baby Girl, CC, Cass” and then listed a number of slurs against women. Asked how often Combs used one particular slur, Nash said: “Um, quite a bit. That was his fave.”
Nash later testified that Cassie had confided in him that she didn’t always want to go along with Combs’ demands that she have sex with other men during his drug-fueled “freak-off” marathons.
A second woman testifies she was raped by Combs
Mia testified that Combs sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions: forcibly kissing her and putting his hand up her dress at his 40th birthday party, forcing her to perform oral sex as they packed for a trip, and raping her after he climbed into her bed at his Los Angeles home.
Mia said she thought her sexual abuse was sporadic enough that each time it occurred, she thought it would never happen again. She said she put on a brave face and continued to work for Combs, in part because she felt shame, blamed herself and feared what would happen if she reported him to authorities.
Cassie testified previously that Combs raped her after she broke up with him in 2018.
Mia said she witnessed Combs physically attacking Cassie “all the time” at his houses, her apartments, hotels, events and while traveling. She said Combs also turned his wrath on her, throwing her into a swimming pool, dumping a bucket of ice on her and hurling a bowl of spaghetti in her direction.
As prosecution’s case shrinks, defense’s may expand
Prosecutors insisted all week that they are ahead of schedule in presenting their case and said they could be done calling witnesses by mid-June.
But Combs lawyer Marc Agnifilo said the defense’s presentation might take longer than expected — particularly after prosecutors revealed they were making “fairly substantial changes” to their plan.
“It may be that because of witnesses the government is not calling, we might have more on the defense case,” he said.
As a result, he added, the trial might run to the start of July.
