Monday, April 7, 2025 - Disgraced hip-pop mogul, "Diddy" Combs, former partner Cassie Ventura, is set to testify under her real name in his upcoming federal trial.
In a motion filed on Friday, April 4, prosecutors state that
"Victim-1" would not be testifying anonymously during Combs'
upcoming trial, where he faces charges of racketeering conspiracy,
s£x trafficking, and transportation to engage in prost!tution. Ventura,
38, is Victim-1 and that she will be testifying in the trial.
"She is prepared to testify under her own name,"
the filing states. "Victim-2, Victim-3, and Victim-4 have asked that their
identities not be revealed to the press or the public."
Prosecutors requested that the anonymous victims "be
referred to at trial using only pseudonyms" and for the court to require
the defense not to share identifying details about them.
"This case has already received an exceptional amount
of media coverage, which will presumably only increase as trial proceeds,"
prosecutors state.
"Permitting these measures will prevent
unnecessary public disclosure of the victims’ identities, and the harassment
from the media and others,undue embarrassment, and other adverse consequences
that would almost certainly follow if these women were forced to reveal their
true names publicly at trial."
Combs, 55, was first charged with three counts of sex
trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution in
September 2024. The latest indictment against Combs, made public by federal
prosecutors in New York City on April 4 and then obtained by PEOPLE, included
one more count each of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in
prost!tution.
The new charges are related to a second victim, the
indictment states.
The indictment alleges that Combs and his associates would
lure people under the pretense of a romantic relationship before he would use
"force, threats of force and coercion" in order to get them to
participate in “freak offs” which prosecutors describe as "elaborate and
produced sex performances" that the disgraced music mogul allegedly
coerced others to participate in.
The new count of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion
alleges that Combs “recruited, enticed, harbored, transported, provided,
obtained, advertised, maintained, patronized and solicited [Victim-2], and
attempted, aided and abetted, and willfully caused [Victim-2], to engage in
commercial sex acts, knowing and in reckless disregard of the fact that
Victim-2 was engaging in commercial sex acts as a result of force, fraud, and
coercion.”
Ventura first made headlines in May 2024 when CNN released
a surveillance video that allegedly showed Combs chasing and beating her
in a hotel in March 2016.
The footage, captured at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles,
allegedly showed Ventura walking toward a bank of elevators as Combs chased
after her, then grabbing her by the neck and tossing her to the floor before
turning to violently kick her and grab her purse and suitcase.
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