After reporting in detail about the alleged physical, emotional and sexual abuse that she had suffered during her ten -year relationship with Sean “Diddy” Combs during her ten -year relationship Casandra “Cassie” Ventura On Thursday for the first day of the consent to the cross.
Start of the crossing: love or control?
The defense began to ask Ventura if she loved Combs. And showed emails and text messages between the couple. Ventura said that they had sent many loving news in the initial phase of their relationship. Ventura said Combs was “sweet” and “attentive” at the beginning. She believed to get to know his “true personality”. And “liked him as he was”.
Dispute of dispute: statements vs. news
The focus of the defense was on Thursday that Ventura had never been forced to act for sexual acts, as she had previously stated. The defense referred to text messages that Ventura sent to Combs in 2009. And in which it was said: “I am always ready to let off steam, Lolol”. And “I just want it to be uncontrollable”.
Topic freak-offs: approval or coercion?
The jury was also shown explicit sexual news between Ventura and Combs in connection with the planning of the drug-rich sexual encounters, which they were referred to as “freak-offs” according to their statement by Combs. Ventura said at the beginning of this week that the freak-offs could take up to four days. And often it ended that Combs became violent towards her. On Thursday, Combs’ lawyer Anna Estevao Ventura asked which phone she wanted to have recorded the “freak-offs” on. Whereupon Ventura replied: “I didn’t want them to be recorded at all.”
Steadfastness under crossing
Ventura stayed calm and steadfast when she was confronted with the very explicit news that she had sent to Combs. She said that she had dealt with Combs more openly with her feelings than he countered. And finally the feeling had the fact that Combs exploit them.
“I have to feel safe,” she wrote Combs in a message from 2009 that was read in court. “The last time was a mistake. But since then I have felt a little dirty and dirty instead of sexually and spontaneous,” she continued. Ventura said Combs that she felt comfortable to take part in freak-offs when she thought she loved each other. But that she slowly lost confidence in her relationship. “That is the only reason why I think about whether I want to do the freak offs,” she wrote. “I’m afraid that I will only be the girlfriend with whom you live out your fantasies. And that it is all that I can’t get the other part.”
Defense strategy: toxic relationship instead of sex trade
Throughout the morning session, Estevao seemed to try to portray Ventura as eager, needy and jealous. A main topic of her defense is that the couple lived in a mutual toxic relationship. And not in a relationship based on sex trade. Ventura said it was true that they and Combs spoke about the so-called “Swingers” lifestyle. And that drugs were a problem in their relationship. She agreed that Combs was apparently dependent on the opiat at a certain point in time, like her. But she said that his actual drug was ecstasy.
The 38-year-old, who is pregnant with her third child in the eighth month, was calm and confident during the direct survey by the prosecutor Emily Johnson from the Southern District of New York. The 55-year-old Combs has known itself in five charges for sex trade, organized crime and transport for the purpose of prostitution.
Representation of Cassies as a jealous partner
The Combs Star defender team, which also includes prominent lawyers Brian Steel and Marc Agnifilo, will probably take Ventura into the cross-question until Friday morning. On Thursday, co-defender Teny Geragos told US district judge Arun Subramanian that Ventura’s direct survey by the public prosecutor’s office was “very different than I expected. Therefore we change our strategy a little.”
Defense team adapts strategy
The Combs lawyers have already laid the foundations for their defense. And admitted that there was domestic violence in the long -term relationship of the couple, but continued to insist that physical abuse was not synonymous with sex trade. Instead, the two would have had a “toxic” dynamic, said Geragos in their opening plea. “Maybe they didn’t always love each other as you expected from a partner. But they were in a relationship and they were not traded.”
Ventura was a “capable adult” who had a mutually acceptable relationship with Combs, added Geragos.
In the course of her statement, Ventura described the jury’s rapid course of her relationship. From her first encounter with Combs as a 19-year-old to her introduction to the “concept” of a freak-off when she was 22. “That never bothered our entire relationship,” she said. “And I was expected. And I felt terrible.”
Review: relationship under violence and control
Ventura said that Combs had physically abused her throughout her relationship. Also in front of male companions, their friends and their employees. “He grabbed me, pushed me to the ground, hit my head, kicked me,” said Ventura, while pictures of her injuries could be seen on the screen. “Whatever you can imagine.”
“I didn’t want to live anymore”
The few times in which Ventura’s voice trembled and she began to cry, when she explained how much she wished that Combs “recognized the pain he did” and what harmful effects this had on her self -esteem and mental health. “I was completely confused. And I didn’t want to live anymore at that time,” Ventura said in tears when she spoke about her thoughts of suicide in 2023.