Sean “Diddy” Combs didn’t hide his brutal abuse of Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, once hurtling a skillet full of eggs at her head — and another time gut-punching her in a restaurant where stars like Usher and Ne-Yo were dining, jurors heard at the mogul’s Manhattan trial Monday.
Testifying as the fifth witness at Combs’ Manhattan Federal Court trial, Danity Kane member Dawn Richard, 42, of New Orleans, told jurors about witnessing the Bad Boy Records co-founder attack Ventura multiple times. Richard was selected for stardom as a member of Danity Kane by Combs in MTV’s “Making the Band.”
In one particularly heinous 2009 incident, she recalled a “belligerent” Combs throwing a skillet Ventura was cooking eggs in toward her head.
“He came downstairs angry and was saying where the f–k was his eggs. Excuse my language,” Richard said. And he was telling Cassie that she never gets anything right, where the f–k is his food, and he proceeded to come over to her and took the skillet with the eggs in it and tried to hit her over the head with it and she fell to the ground,” Richard said.
Ventura assumed a fetal position to defend herself, Richard testified.
“It seemed as if she was doing it as if it was something that she did often,” Richard said.
Richard said Combs started to punch and kick Ventura in her body and head and then proceeded to grab her by the neck and drag her to a room on another floor. Richard then heard glass breaking and yelling.
The next day, Combs summoned Richard and another woman who witnessed the incident, Kaleena Harper, to come back to his place, locking them in his recording studio to deliver a thinly veiled threat, RIchard testified.
“He said that what we saw was a passion and what lovers in relationships do. He said that she was okay and that it would be in our best interests if we didn’t say anything,” Richard recalled.
“He was trying to take us to the top, and that, where he comes from, people go missing if they say things like that, like, if people talk. And then he gave us flowers.”
Richard, chosen for Danity Kane during the third season of the hit MTV show in 2005, shared the account Friday after jurors heard four days of bombshell testimony from Ventura about suffering for 11 years under Combs.
Richard told prosecutors about seeing Combs assault Ventura on other occasions, like when Ventura would try to stand up for herself. She testified Combs gut-punched Ventura at a West Hollywood restaurant where celebrities like Usher, Ne-Yo, and Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine were present. She also told the jury about seeing firearms in the presence of Combs and his security guards and witnessing drug dealers drop off cocaine and marijuana.
Richard is one plaintiff among more than 70 who have sued “Diddy” since sexual misconduct and violence allegations first surfaced against the once larger-than-life producer in 2023, alleging he assaulted, imprisoned, and threatened her life.
In her cross-examination Monday, Combs’ defense attorney Nicole Westmoreland attempted to highlight discrepancies in Richard’s testimony and her initial interviews with the feds. Westmoreland said Richard hadn’t previously recounted Combs making the threat about people going missing.
Richard said she’d remembered more over time and acknowledged contacting Combs about professional opportunities after Danity Kane disbanded.
When prosecutors resumed questioning Richard after her tense cross-examination with Westmoreland, she reiterated that she did not doubt her recollection of the kitchen attack and the threat that followed.
In addition to experiencing frequent savage beatings, Ventura, 17 years Combs’ junior, last week told the jury she was coerced into participating in “hundreds” of degrading sexual performances with male commercial sex workers that he dubbed “freak-offs.”
That activity began after she started dating him soon after being signed to his record label at 19. As she recovered from beatings, Combs in essence imprisoned her in hotel rooms and at his properties, refusing to let her leave until her injuries were no longer visible, she said. She also said he threatened to release videos of her participating in humiliating freak-off sessions as blackmail.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. He could face life in prison if convicted.
Now in his third week on trial, the hip-hop mogul has been incarcerated at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center since his September 2024 arrest. The scandal-plagued federal jail is also housing the alleged healthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione along with the multimillionaire Alexander brothers — Oren, Alon, and Tal Alexander — who are accused of trafficking young women and minors for sex.
The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office alleges that, from 2004 to 2024, the prolific hip-hop producer coerced Ventura and another woman into participating in dehumanizing “freak-offs” with assistance from a network of high-ranking employees, unlimited resources and immense influence. The jury is also expected to hear allegations from his former assistant, who will testify under the pseudonym Mia, that he sexually assaulted her.
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