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Hey everyone Andrea canning here with a bonus drop from the date line true crime weekly team for the next 8 weeks or so will be bringing you daily updates from the trial of Sean Diddy combs I'll be talking to NBC news correspondent Chloe middle -class every day after court about what she's saying inside, the witnesses, the evidence, and what it all means.
Starting tomorrow, episodes will drop in the Dateline True Crime Weekly feed.
This is On Trial, a special podcast from Dateline True Crime Weekly, bringing you daily coverage from the Sean Combs trial.
I'm Andrea Canning.
Today is May 13th. In this episode, we're going to be talking about some graphic details and harrowing subject matter.
Sean Combs is facing charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation for the purposes of prostitution, all of which he has denied.
The second day of testimony began with his defense team's vigorous cross -examination of a man who says that he was paid to have sex with Combs then -girlfriend Cassie Ventura and that he also saw Combs behave violently toward Cassie.
Then, just after 11 a .m., the prosecution called Kasi Ventura herself.
She is their star witness, and NBC News correspondent Chloe Malas was in the courtroom when Kasi made her way to the stand.
She joins me now from just outside the courthouse to tell us what happened next.
She's eight months pregnant and walks into this courtroom wearing this fitted brown dress, this long brown overcoat.
Her husband was sitting right in front of me, and you could hear a pin drop.
This has been the most anticipated testimony for over a year.
Before we get to Cassie's actual testimony, let's talk about this other witness who started the day off.
He is the man who says that in 2012 and 2013, he met Cassie and Sean Combs at hotels around New York City and at both of their homes.
This was for sex with Cassie.
He testified yesterday and again today on Cross that he witnessed Combs being violent with Cassie on at least two occasions, and it made him very uncomfortable, but yet he decided not to say anything.
He is a bit of a conundrum.
During his testimony, he talked about having participated in these freak -offs and that he developed a friendship with Cassie, or so he thought.
On Cross' examination, one of Combs' attorneys, Xavier Donaldson, really picked apart his testimony and said, look, some of the things that you're saying are not what you told investigators in the lead up to this trial.
And I know that this witness, he apparently said that he had thought about going to police but didn't want to because he enjoyed being part of this world that he was in with these celebrities.
On one hand, he says, I was so afraid for my life.
I did not know what Sean Combs was capable of, which is why I didn't go to the police, which is why I didn't physically intervene.
but then there's a text exchange between himself and Cassie Ventura after this incident where he claims he saw Combs be violent with Cassie where he says I just love y 'all that's paraphrasing the text message and when Xavier Donaldson on cross -examination said well if you were so scared for your life or you were so disgusted by what you had seen why did you write that and he actually says oh well, I didn't mean what I texted, I just did that debate Cassie, because they wanted her to ask me to participate in another freak off so that I could go see her in person and make sure that she was emotionally
and physically okay because I was worried about her.
But is that something that the jury's really gonna buy?
Combs' children were in court, how did they handle this?
Did they stay for the entirety or, I mean, it's a lot.
You know, at one point, Prosecutors introduced a photo as evidence, just to establish the fact that Cassie was dating Combs.
It was early on in their relationship.
And in the photo, it's Cassie, Shawn Combs, someone else and Kim Porter.
Reportedly, the love of Combs' life died of pneumonia several years ago, and her children were in that courtroom.
And I looked over at them, and I thought that I was going to see tears, but they remained strong and very stoic.
One of Combs's ex partners was also there today the mother of his son Justin her name is Misa Hilton And what was interesting about her presence?
Is that after the video of Cassie being beaten at the hotel in LA came out.
She posted something on Instagram about it Yeah, I was actually surprised to see her in the courtroom about a year ago That's when she wrote my heart goes out to her meeting Cassie saying I know how she feels also saying that Sean needs home But she is sitting right there on Combs' side of the courtroom.
When we come back, Kasse Ventura takes the stand.
How did Sean Combs look when Kasse walked into that courtroom?
He turned around and he watched her walk down the aisle of the courtroom and go up to the stand and he really stared at her during her entire testimony.
His face expressionless.
I saw him looking over into the jury box multiple times, but when there was one of the breaks everybody left the courtroom and then when we all came back in as Combs walked back in, he looked over at his family sitting behind him and he opened his eyes really wide and you could see him let out this big exhale.
You can tell he's stressed and this is very different than the Sean Combs that we've seen at all the pretrial hearings where he's smiling and he's even yesterday blowing a kiss to his family he looks tense maybe that's because this is the first time that he's seen Cassie since they broke up several years ago and also I mean because let's be honest he faces up to life in prison.
And you can argue that this whole thing is happening right now possibly because of her.
Oh absolutely there will be other witnesses.
There are other alleged victims but Cassie is the star witness.
So Cassie gave some insight into how she met Sean about this age gap between them he's seeing somebody else at the time.
Let us know kind of what she said about how this all started.
So Cassie is an artist right who had a couple of hits very early on in her career and she described being introduced to Combs because she was hoping to sign with Bad Boy Records.
And she ultimately did land this 10 album deal with his company and she said she knew him as this, you know, serial entrepreneur, he was a kingmaker, and you know, she was just excited to be in his presence.
In the beginning of their relationship he was really looking out for her.
She had a couple of bad performances and she said that he always had her back.
But then she says that it was her 21st birthday and she celebrated it in Las Vegas and that is the night that Combs kissed her for the first time, and she actually said in her testimony today that she ran out crying because she was so taken aback by the fact that he was showing interest in her, he's essentially her boss and she was really confused and she described herself as just being just really naive when it came to relationships, but then She said shortly thereafter, their situation became romantic and that she started to fall in love with him.
And that's when they became intimate and then they ended up staying together on and off for 11 years.
Yeah. I mean, it was a long time.
And when you look at those pictures of them on red carpets, they look so perfect together.
And what's also really interesting is that she said she thought that they were in this monogamous relationship but it turned out that Combs had quote, many girlfriends in his life, and she said on the stand today that she was jealous of that.
And so that is something that we heard in Combs's defense's opening statement yesterday that all of this rage was fueled by jealousy on both sides.
So we heard the so -called escort talk about the free coughs.
What was Cassie's version of them in court?
Cassie said that early on in the relationship, he introduced the idea of having three separate And ultimately, they had a threesome with an escort.
And she said that she didn't wanna do it, but that she didn't really vocalize it because she wanted to make Shaun happy.
And she said that once they did it, it just kept going.
And that, at one point, these freak offs were happening weekly, and some of these freak offs would last days.
At a certain point, she said Shaun was essentially controlling most of her life.
I mean, she said that, look, I mean, he was the head of bad boy.
that he controlled her career.
He told her what to wear, allegedly.
She said that she was the one that was instructed by Combs to go and hire these escorts.
Sometimes she would book the hotels, she would pay the escorts, and that she would even bring candles and baby oil and help really arrange the hotel room before these freak -offs happened.
Cassie got emotional at times, Chloe?
Yeah, so pretty early on in her testimony, you saw her holding a Kleenex and she was wiping her nose and kind of wiping her eyes.
And then when she started talking about how she really felt forced into these freak -offs and that she really was in love with Combs and really just wanted to make him happy, that's when she broke down crying.
So it was a very emotional day.
Cassie will be back on the stand tomorrow.
And the defense will have their turn to cross -examine at some point.
Chloe, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
Yeah. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening.
Remember, starting tomorrow, you'll only be able to find our in -depth coverage.
In the Dateline True Crime Weekly feed, so make sure to follow us there.
And if you want to read the latest developments and analysis from inside the courtroom, check out the NBC newsletter, Diddy on Trial.
Go to NBCNews .com slash Diddy to find that.
On Trial is produced by Franny Kelly with help from the Dateline True Crime Weekly team.
Our Senior Producer is Liz Brown -Kurloff, Original Music by Jessie McGinty, Paul Ryan is Executive Producer and Liz Kohl is Senior Executive Producer of Dateline.
