Sean “Diddy” Combs’s sex-trafficking trial is poised to become even more star-studded on Thursday with testimony from Kid Cudi. The “Day ’n’ Nite” rapper’s name has come up repeatedly during Diddy’s trial because he dated the fallen mogul’s ex, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura. Cassie’s allegations that Diddy coerced her into sex with escorts at “Freak Off” events — while he watched and masturbated — are the center of prosecutors’ case against him. Cassie told jurors last week that Combs lunged at her with a bottle opener during a Freak Off when he found out she was seeing Kid Cudi. “His eyes blacked out,” Cassie said. Diddy purportedly told Cassie that Cudi’s “car would be blown up.” Diddy said he “wanted [Cudi’s] friends to see his car blown up in the driveway,” she alleged. Cassie said that she and Cudi started seeing each other when she and Diddy were on a break in late 2011, but split because being in the relationship seemed too dangerous.
On cross-examination, Diddy’s attorney Anna Estevao suggested that her client’s rage was rooted in romantic jealousy — not criminal conspiracy. “This was particularly offensive to Mr. Combs because of [Cudi’s] stature in the industry?” Estevao asked Cassie of her time with Cudi. “To my knowledge, yeah,” Cassie said. “You would frequently have text arguments about cheating, and he would bring up Kid Cudi all the time, right?” Estevao pressed. Cassie answered in the affirmative. Would Diddy just bring up Cudi if she accused him of seeing other women? “Not always,” but frequently, Cassie said. While Estevao tried to reframe the Diddy-Cudi beef, testimony from Cassie’s mom undermined that effort.
Regina Ventura said that Cassie sent her and Capricorn Clark, a onetime Diddy assistant, a frantic email in late 2011 detailing alleged threats. “The threats that have been made towards me by Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs are that … he is going to release 2 explicit sex tapes of me,” Cassie wrote. “One on Christmas Day, maybe before or right after and another one some time soon after that. He has also said that he will be having someone hurt me and [Kid Cudi]physically. He made a point that it wouldn’t be by his hand, he actually said he’d be out of the country when it happened.” Regina said she understood that Diddy demanded to be repaid $20,000 he spent on Cassie “because he was angry that she had a relationship with [Kid Cudi.]” Regina and her husband took out a home-equity loan and wired the money to Diddy’s label, Bad Boy Records, over the threats. The money was ultimately returned to them.
