UPDATE: Cassie takes the stand in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ sex trafficking trial

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, took the witness stand in his sex trafficking trial on Tuesday, a day after prosecutors showed jurors video of the music mogul beating her in a hotel in 2016.

Testimony in the trial began Monday. Prosecutors told jurors that, for years, Combs used his status as a powerful executive to coerce women into abusive sexual encounters and became violent if they refused.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

Here’s the latest:

Cassie says Combs was ‘really happy’ with her after her first ‘freak off’

Cassie testified that her first “freak off” occurred in Combs’ Los Angeles home when she was 22, around 2008. She said a male Las Vegas stripper came to the home, just months after Combs told her about his interest in voyeurism.

Cassie said she felt a mix of emotions when they were finished — dirty and confused, but also relief that Combs was “really happy with me” that “I did something right.”

She said she felt obligated to go along with future “freak offs.”

“I just didn’t want to make him upset. I just didn’t want to make him angry and regret telling me about this experience that was so personal.”

Asked if there was anything she enjoyed about “freak offs,” an emotional Cassie said: “the time spent with him.”

Wiping away tears, she explained that those encounters provided some of the only one-on-one time she had with Combs.

Soon, she said, she was doing “freak offs” weekly. The final one, she said, occurred in 2017 or 2018.

Cassie says she saw Combs and his bodyguard grab guns to confront Suge Knight

Cassie recalled an incident in which Combs left her during a “freak off” at his Los Angeles home to confront rival record executive Suge Knight at Mel’s Drive-In, a landmark diner nearby.

Combs sprang into action after his bodyguard came in and told him of Knight’s whereabouts, she said. Combs and the bodyguard dressed in black clothes, grabbed guns from a safe and loaded into an SUV, she said.

“I was crying. I was screaming, like ‘Please don’t do anything stupid,’” Cassie testified. “I was really nervous for them. I didn’t know what they were going to do.”

She said, “It’s like I wasn’t even there.”

Cassie said Combs later returned, but she didn’t say if he told her what happened. It’s unclear if he ended up encountering Knight at the diner.

Before the break, Cassie testified about her music career and unreleased material

Before the trial paused for a 40-minute lunch break, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson pressed Cassie to explain what happened to her music career and the nine albums that were never released.

Cassie said she created hundreds of songs, some of which were released on the internet prior to “proper release and some just didn’t see the light of day.” Cassie testified that much of her week went toward the “freak offs.”

“Freak offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again,” she said.

Just before the break, Cassie testified the longest ‘freak off’ she was involved in lasted four days

“The freak offs became a job,” she said, noting that other encounters took anywhere from 36 or 48 hours. The marathon sessions frequently required periods of recovery from dehydration, fatigue and drug use, she said.

Prosecutors delved deeper into the control Cassie says Combs exerted over her

She noted that the rap star paid her rent at apartments close to his residences in New York and later Los Angeles, had his own sets of keys and made “a lot of unannounced visits.”

Cassie said that as a birthday present, Combs rented her a Manhattan apartment a few blocks from where he lived. Another apartment Combs rented for Cassie in Los Angeles was just a three-minute drive from his home and he’d sometimes drive a golf cart to get from one residence to the other.

Cassie testifies she was ‘insanely jealous’ at the beginning of her relationship with Combs

Jealousy was cited during opening statements Monday as a source of much of the conflict between Combs and Cassie. Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson elicited from Cassie that she and Combs were seeing other people at times.

In the beginning, Cassie said, she was “insanely jealous.” She said that resulted from being “super young.”

“I didn’t get that he was him. As he would say, ‘I’m Puff Daddy. Puff Daddy has many rules. Likes the company of women,’” she recalled.

She said that as time passed, she came to believe “more often than not” that they were in a monogamous relationship. “He expected that of me so I assumed it was the same.”

She said Combs told her: “I’m not dealing with anyone else. It’s just us.”

Over time, Cassie testified, Combs became increasingly controlling and sometimes was violent

She said Combs would get abusive over the smallest perceived slights — if she wasn’t smiling at him the way he wanted, or if he thought she was acting like a brat.

“You make the wrong face and the next thing I knew I was getting hit in the face,” she said.

Cassie said that if she didn’t respond to his call right away, there would be incessant calls until she did and Combs’ staff, including security workers, would join in the pursuit.

As Cassie testified, the prosecution introduced photos of her and Combs at events in the mid-2000s

The numerous photographs included a photograph of the boat in Miami. Another photograph depicted the fledgling couple at a strip club in New York on Halloween 2007, shortly after the trip to Miami. Another picture showed them in the back of a car at the beginning of their relationship, Combs arm wrapped around her.

“I was just enamored by him. We were just having a good time. It was really fun, at this point,” she said.

Cassie noted that, early on in their relationship, they weren’t public about it. She said Combs had expressed concerns about perceptions, given that his company was also producing her music.

Having sex with Combs for the first time felt like a turning point for Cassie, she testified

After that, she said, she felt closer to the rapper and producer, started spending more time with him, and thought, at the time, that they were in a monogamous relationship.

In hindsight, she said, she knows that wasn’t the case. Asked why, she responded: “Sean Combs had many girlfriends.”

After Vegas trip, Cassie says Combs invited her to hotels

After the Las Vegas trip, Cassie said, she was invited by Combs to hotels in New York where they’d talk about music projects and albums.

When Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson asked what else happened at hotels, Cassie took a deep breath and said she was introduced to the “idea of oral sex” at the hotels.

Cassie also noted that Combs is 17 years older than her and that she was “sexually inexperienced” when they first got together.

She said she eventually had sex with Combs on a boat during a trip to Miami. She said she had wine in the afternoon and then Combs introduced her to ecstasy for the first time.

Cassie talks about Combs kissing her during a 21st birthday trip

After touching on the violence and “freak offs” that are central to the federal charges, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson returned to eliciting biographical and historical information about Cassie, including when she first signed to Bad Boy Records in early 2006.

She said her interactions with Combs, who owned the label, were platonic at first. But then he kissed her during her 21st birthday trip to Las Vegas in the bathroom of his hotel suite. “I was just really confused at the time,” she said. “And young.”

‘I just didn’t know. I didn’t know what would happen’

Elaborating on why she felt it was so difficult to refuse Combs’ demands, Cassie reiterated her fears of violence and blackmail videos from “freak offs” being disseminated on the internet.

“Sean is a really polarizing person, also really charming,” Cassie said. “It’s hard to really be able to decide in that moment what you need when he’s telling you what he wants. I just didn’t know. I didn’t know what would happen.”

Cassie, noticeably pregnant on the witness stand, was emotional from the start

She would take deep breaths and sometimes paused as she spoke.

When the prosecutor questioned her about “freak offs,” she said she was barely 22 when Combs first asked her to do them. She said she was “confused, nervous, but also loved him very much.”

Asked how she felt when Combs first proposed engaging in a “freak off,” Cassie said: “I just remember my stomach falling to my butt. Just the nervousness and confusion in that moment.”

She said she didn’t feel like she could say no to Combs because she “didn’t know what ‘no’ could be, or what ‘no’ could turn into,” which she said she learned could include violence and blackmail threats.

“Sean controlled a lot of my life, whether it was career, the way I dressed, everything, everything. I just didn’t have much say in it at the time,” Cassie testified.

Early in her testimony, Cassie was asked briefly about ‘freak offs’

“Freak offs” were the highly orchestrated sex parties which she said stemmed from Combs’ interest in voyeurism. They would entail hiring an escort and “setting up this experience so that I could perform for Sean,” Cassie said.

Shown still images from the now-infamous 2016 security camera footage of Combs beating her at a Los Angeles hotel, Cassie said prior to the altercation: “We were having an encounter called a ‘freak off’ and I was leaving there.”

Cassie on the witness stand

Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson started questioning of Cassie by asking her age, which is 38, and her occupation, which she said is “musician, an entertainer.” She said she was in a relationship with Combs for just over 10 years.

Cassie testified that her relationship with Combs ran the gamut from good times to arguments and physical altercations.

“If they were violent arguments, it would usually result in some sort of physical abuse and dragging, just different things,” Cassie told jurors.

She testified that Combs would mash her head, drag her, kick her and stomp her in the head when she was down.

Asked how frequently Combs became violent with her, Cassie softly responded: “Too frequently.”

Witnesses began testifying this week in the sex trafficking trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, one of the biggest music moguls and cultural figures of the past four decades.

Combs’ former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, is expected to take the stand Tuesday after prosecutors on Monday showed jurors video of the performer beating her in a hotel in 2016.

The trial is expected to last at least eight weeks in all. Here’s a look at some of the details.

The charges against Diddy

Prosecutors allege Combs used his “power and prestige” as a music star to induce female victims into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances with male sex workers in events dubbed “freak offs.”

They say he coerced and abused women with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.

“During this trial you are going to hear about 20 years of the defendant’s crimes,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told jurors in her opening statement Monday. “But he didn’t do it alone. He had an inner circle of bodyguards and high-ranking employees who helped him commit crimes and cover them up.”

Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos, however, told jurors that prosecutors are trying to turn sex between consenting adults into a sex trafficking case.

“Sean Combs is a complicated man. But this is not a complicated case. This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money,” she said.

Prosecutors revealed shortly before trial that Combs rejected a plea agreement that might have meant a lighter sentence than a conviction could. They did not disclose the terms of the proposed deal.

The witnesses and the evidence against Diddy

The prosecution on Monday showed the jury security video of Combs beating and kicking Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.

The trial’s first witness, Israel Florez, who was working hotel security at the time, testified about responding to a report of a woman in distress and witnessing Combs tell Cassie:, “You’re not going to leave.” Florez said he told Combs, “If she wants to leave, she’s going to leave.”

Cassie, who is expected to testify herself, was Combs’ on-again-off-again romantic partner for more than a decade. Her 2023 lawsuit against Combs alleging years of abuse, including rape, began the scrutiny that eventually led to his prosecution.

Jurors on Monday also heard from Daniel Phillip, who said he was a professional stripper who was paid to have sex with Cassie while Combs watched and gave instructions. He testified that he once saw Combs drag her by her hair as she screamed.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie did.

The trial’s main players

The trial is in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian. He’s a Columbia Law School graduate and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and was appointed a federal judge by President Joe Biden in 2022.

The prosecution team consists of eight assistant U.S. attorneys, seven of them women. They include Maurene Ryan Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey. She was among the prosecutors in the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein.

Combs’ team of seven defense attorneys is led by New York lawyer Marc Agnifilo, who along with his wife Karen Friedman Agnifilo is also defending Luigi Mangione, the man accused of the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Also on the defense team is Atlanta attorney Brian Steel, who represented Young Thug in a trial that went on for nearly two years before the rapper pleaded guilty to gang, drug and gun charges.

The members of the jury

Twelve jurors — eight men and four women — and six alternates were chosen just before opening statements began Monday. They include include a massage therapist, an investment analyst and a deli clerk.

The jurors’ identities are known to the court and the prosecution and defense sides, but won’t be made public.

It’s common in federal cases to keep juries anonymous, particularly in sensitive, high-profile matters where juror safety is a concern

Diddy’s court appearance

Combs, 55, has been held at a federal jail in Brooklyn since his September arrest. His formerly jet-black hair is now almost completely gray because dye isn’t allowed at the detention center.

Combs, who had his own fashion line, has worn yellow jail uniforms in pretrial hearings. But for the trial, the judge said he can have up to five button-down shirts, five pairs of pants, five sweaters, five pairs of socks and two pairs of shoes without laces.

Under federal court rules, no photos or video of the trial will be allowed. Courtroom sketches are permitted.

What we won’t hear at the trial

Since 2023, dozens of women and men have been filing lawsuits against Combs claiming he sexually or physically abused them. Many of those people said they were slipped drugs at events hosted by Combs and were abused while they were incapacitated.

Combs has denied all of the allegations through his lawyers.

Some of those lawsuits have claimed that other celebrities were either present for or participated in the abuse.

The great majority of those allegations, however, aren’t part of the criminal case. Prosecutors have chosen to focus on a relatively small number of accusers and allegations where there is physical evidence or corroboration by witnesses.