Cassie Ventura is back on the stand Thursday for a third day in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking trial.
KNX News’ Margaret Carrero dissected the testimony with attorney Lisa Bloom, who specializes in representing victims of sexual harassment, abuse, and discrimination, including high-profile cases involving Bill Cosby, Bill O’Reilly, and Jeffrey Epstein. She also represents a government witness in the case against Combs.
“[Cassie] looks like she’s about 9 months pregnant,” Bloom said. “She is very pregnant, and I think if anything else, this puts to rest any ideas that pregnant women are docile or weak because she has done something that I think very few people can do, and that is answer questions about these very intimate sexually graphic details of her life.”
Thursday’s cross-examination focused heavily on the drug use during Combs’ “freak-offs,” along with his anger and jealousy when Cassie would see other men.
But this isn’t a domestic violence or assault trial – Combs is facing charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transporting people for the purposes of prostitution.
“The prostitution one's pretty easy because she testified about male escorts for their freak-offs and being paid by them,” Bloom said. “But that's the least significant charge. For racketeering, it's essentially that there is a conspiracy between Mr. Combs and people who worked for him to engage in consensual sexual acts with Cassie but that were forced or that were coerced by his acts of violence. And then sex trafficking is also getting her and other victims to engage in sexual activities by fraud, force, or coercion.”
In cases like this, the defense often tries to argue that the victim consented to the sexual encounters. But unlike many high-profile cases, Cassie had an 11-year on-and-off relationship with her accused assailant.
“This is more like a domestic violence case where people are having a relationship,” Bloom said. “But I think the evidence of the beatings, the assaults on her, the pictures of her injuries, that's probably been the most powerful part of the case so far.”
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Bloom said Cassie’s testimony – including sexually explicit text messages shown in court – is likely to have an emotional impact on the jury.
“I think Cassie Ventura was a very powerful witness,” she said. “She's here because she wants justice, and she ended her testimony on direct yesterday by saying what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong, and I'm not going to walk around with this shame anymore.”
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