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

In 2023 Cassie Ventura went to rehab and trauma therapy. She described losing her will to live and her contemplation of suicide.

"I was spinning out and I didn't want to be alive anymore at that point," she testified, breaking down as she recounted how "I couldn't take the pain I was in anymore."

She said she "tried to walk out the front door into traffic" but, holding a tissue to her eye, she added "my husband would not let me."

She wrote the chapters of a book, "putting everything on paper for the first time so I could really understand what I had been through over many years."

She wanted Combs to read it because she said she "wanted him to recognize the pain he put me through." Combs listened to this with his chin resting on his hand, elbow on the table.

"He brought the concept to me when I was 22," she said, speaking of "freak offs." "And it never stopped." Through tears Ventura said "I was always so numb because that's what I chose to get through it." She said she participated in "hundreds" of "freak offs" during her relationship with Combs, and none since.

She said she offered Combs the rights to her book for $30 million, a figure she said she picked at random "that would alert him." She received no money.

She filed a civil lawsuit in November 2023 that settled the next day for $20 million, the first time the settlement detail has been publicly revealed.

Asked why she agreed to testify, Ventura said "I can't carry this anymore. I can't carry the shame, the guilt, the way I was guided to treat people like they were disposable. What's right is right, what's wrong is wrong. I'm here to do the right thing."

Court has adjourned for the day and cross-examination will begin on Thursday.

Darla Miles details another day of shocking testimony from Cassie Ventura, and looks ahead at the cross-examination set to begin Thursday.

Cassie Ventura testified she also saw Sean Combs inflict violence on others, beyond her own experiences.

Ventura alleged that Combs dangled a friend of hers, known as Bana, over a balcony at Ventura's 17th floor apartment off Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles.

"I saw him bring her back over the railing of the balcony and then throw her onto the patio furniture," Ventura testified.

Ventura's 2023 civil lawsuit described the same incident. Federal prosecutors included it in the racketeering conspiracy charge Combs faces. The civil suit was settled with no admission of wrongdoing by Combs.

"On one occasion, Combs dangled a female victim over an apartment balcony," the indictment alleges.

Ventura's testimony is not linear but makes clear that she alleges that over the nearly 11-year relationship, the alleged violence, sex and the drugs took a toll, leaving her experiencing what she told the court were "PTSD episodes."

Kemberly Richardson has more on Cassie Ventura's testimony.

The second-to-last time Ventura saw Combs, in 2018, she testified that "He raped me in my living room."

Ventura testified that she and Combs had been out to dinner but after he brought her home, his demeanor changed.

"The laughing and other things happening before that were not there. It was like someone taking something from you," Ventura told the court.

The alleged rape occurred on the floor, Ventura told the jury.

"I just remember crying and saying no but it was very fast," she testified. "I don't know if he noticed."

Ventura testified that she saw Combs one more time after that, and that she agreed to the meeting because she felt they were "still very connected."

"I didn't hate him," Ventura told the jury.

After that encounter, Ventura testified, there were some communications between her and Combs but she hadn't seen him in more than six years, she said, until she walked into court to testify against him this week.

Cassie Ventura broke off her brief relationship with Kid Cudi because "it was just too much," she testified, saying there was "too much danger, too much uncertainty of what could happen if we continued to see each other."

Ventura told the jury that Combs allegedly told her that he was going to hurt her and Kid Cudi and that Combs allegedly would later speak of arson.

"Scott's car would be blown up," Ventura testified Combs told her. "Sean wanted Scott's friends to be there to see the car get blown up in the driveway."

Ventura, Combs and Cudi all met at the SoHo House social club in Los Angeles to discuss the relationship, according to Ventura's testimony.

"Scott said, 'What about my vehicle?' and Sean said, 'What vehicle?' And that was the end of the meeting," Ventura testified.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to leading a racketeering conspiracy. One of the alleged acts of threatened violence included in the racketeering count is arson.

Cassie Ventura testified that in 2011, when the relationship between her and Sean Combs was "not in the greatest place," she began briefly dating Scott Mescudi, the performer better known as Kid Cudi.

Ventura told the court that Combs learned of the relationship during a "freak off" in Los Angeles: "He went through my phone and saw emails between me and a staff member."

"I just remember him putting a wine bottle opener in between his fingers and lunging at me," Ventura testified.

Ventura kept a "burner" phone to communicate with Kid Cudi because "I didn't want Sean to find out," she testified.

Ventura testified that she later went to Combs' home because he allegedly said he wanted to talk.

"He was irate, He was just so angry," Ventura testified. "When I was in the room, he told me about videos that he had and how it was going to hurt Scott and I."

Ventura told the court that the videos Combs referenced were videos of "freak offs."

"Sean kicked me in the back on the way out so I had a big bruise on my back," Ventura testified. "I had bruises in other places on my body."

Ventura testified that she flew to Connecticut. On the plane ride there, Ventura testified, she wrote an email to her mother under an alias she used -- Veronica -- warning her mother that "Sean Puffy Combs is going to release two explicit sexual tapes of me ... he also said that he will have someone hurt me and Scott Mescudi."

Once in Connecticut, Ventura testified that her mother took photos of her injuries. The jury was shown an image of a welt on her back.