Sean Combs sex trafficking trial updates: Cassie's testimony ends after days of describing abuse

Cassie recalled an incident where Combs left her during a "freak off" at his Los Angeles home to confront rival record executive Suge Knight at Mel's Drive-In, a landmark diner nearby.

Combs sprang into action after his bodyguard came in and told him of Knight's whereabouts, she said. Combs and the bodyguard dressed in black clothes, grabbed guns from a safe and loaded into an SUV, she said.

"I was crying. I was screaming, like 'Please don't do anything stupid,'" Cassie testified. "I was really nervous for them. I didn't know what they were going to do."

She said, "It's like I wasn't even there."

Cassie said Combs later returned, but she didn't say if he told her what happened. It's unclear if he ended up encountering Knight at the diner.

"The freak offs became a job," she said, noting that other encounters took anywhere from 36 or 48 hours.

The marathon sessions frequently required periods of recovery from dehydration, fatigue and drug use, she said.

Before the trial paused for a 40-minute lunch break, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson pressed Cassie to explain what happened to her music career and the nine albums that were never released.

Cassie said she created hundreds of songs, some of which were released on the internet prior to "proper release and some just didn't see the light of day." Cassie testified that much of her week went toward the "freak offs."

"Freak offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again," she said.

As her relationship with Sean Combs went on Cassie Ventura told the jury "I began to experience a different side of him, which was his abusive side. But there was still love there."

She described worrying about his moods. "Make the wrong face and the next thing I knew I was getting hit in the face," she said.

Members of his security staff "kept an eye on me" and he would constantly call if she ignored him. At the same time, Ventura said she would get "insanely jealous" when she saw Combs with other women.

"I was insanely jealous but also super young, didn't get it at all. Young and jealous," she said. "I didn't get that he was him, as he would say,' I'm Puff Daddy and Puff Daddy has many women.'"

Combs appeared to look at Ventura as she entered the courtroom. She did not appear to look at him.

Ventura described moving to Los Angeles and living in apartments Combs paid for and the "stomach in knots" moments when he would drop by unannounced, not knowing if he was angry.

Though her recording contract with Bad Boy Records called for ten albums, she released only one. "If you're not releasing music you're not doing your job so the career was stifled," Ventura said.

"Why did you not release another album during this time?" prosecutor Emily Johnson asked.

"You're asking me?" Ventura responded in jest. "Plainly, the freak offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again."

She said the sexual encounters with prostitutes typically lasted anywhere from 36 to 48 to 72 hours. The longest one lasted four days.

The court is on a lunch break. Ventura's testimony is expected to continue for the remainder of the day and beyond.

Ventura told the jury Combs controlled a lot of her life, from her career to the way she dressed. "And it just didn't feel like I had much say in it being super young, naïve, people-pleaser. I didn't know if he would be upset enough to be violent or if he would write me off and not want to be with me at all," Ventura testified.

If she refused Combs, Ventura said "it was always in the back of my mind that I would somehow be hurt." Over time, she said "there were blackmail materials."

"I think I was just really confused at the time, and young, new artist, just didn't know the lay of the land when it came to things like that. In my confusion just kind of cried and ran off," Ventura testified. "I just wasn't familiar with having an executive or anybody pay attention to me or be that forward at that point. Pretty naïve, I would say."

Though 17 years younger than Combs, Ventura said she "wanted to be around Sean for the same reasons as everyone else at the time. He's just this exciting and entertaining fun guy that just also happened to have my career in his hands."

She testified that Combs introduced her to oral sex in a New York hotel room. "He basically taught me how," she said.

"How did he introduce you to oral sex? "Johnson asked.

"He gave me oral sex," Ventura responded.

The two first had intercourse on a boat Combs had rented on a trip to Miami, Ventura testified.

"I became one of his girlfriends," Ventura said.

Combs listened passively to Ventura's testimony as he sat the defense table with his hands in his lap. Combs' family listened in the second row.

Ventura's husband, Alex Fine, is also in the courtroom.