By Jack Queen
(Reuters) -Sean “Diddy” Combs’ ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura, a rhythm and blues singer known as “Cassie,” is expected to testify on Tuesday as the prosecution’s star witness in the hip-hop mogul’s sex trafficking case, a day after jurors saw a video of Combs hitting and kicking her in a hotel in 2016.
Prosecutors say Combs lured women into romantic relationships, forced them to take part in days of drug-fueled sex parties and then blackmailed them with videos he recorded of the encounters.
Combs “viciously attacked” women when they resisted taking part in the parties, known as “Freak Offs” or otherwise upset him, prosecutor Emily Johnson said during her opening statement on Monday in Manhattan federal court.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to five felony counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted on all counts, he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and could face life in prison.
Combs is known for turning rap and rhythm and blues artists like Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige into stars, and in the process elevating the mainstream appeal of hip-hop in American culture in the 1990s and early 2000s.
His lawyers say prosecutors want to criminalize the rapper’s “swingers” lifestyle in which he and his girlfriends invited other men to join them for sex.
Defense lawyer Teny Geragos conceded to jurors on Monday that Combs had a bad temper and jealousy problems but said this had nothing to do with sex trafficking or racketeering.
“Domestic violence is not sex trafficking,” Geragos said. “He is not charged with being a flawed individual.”
Prosecutors introduced the video of Combs and Ventura on Monday, the first day of evidence in the high-profile trial.
In the video, Combs throws Ventura to the ground and kicks her in the hallway of a Los Angeles area hotel as she tries to enter an elevator.
Combs, wearing only a towel, is then seen grabbing Ventura’s belongings and dragging her into the hallway. Combs apologized after the video first aired on CNN last year.
Marc Agnifilo, Combs’ lead lawyer, has said the 2016 hotel incident depicted the aftermath of a dispute over infidelity. In a court hearing on Friday, Agnifilo said Ventura had a history of domestic violence, signaling he plans to use that to undermine Ventura’s credibility with jurors.
Over the course of a two-month trial, jurors are expected to hear testimony from Ventura and two or possibly three of Combs’ other female accusers, as well as his former employees who prosecutors say helped arrange and cover up his actions.
Johnson told jurors they would hear testimony from victims who said Combs routinely beat them and exploded with rage at the smallest slights.
“They will tell you about some of the most painful experiences of their lives. The days they spent in hotel rooms, high on drugs, dressed in costumes to perform the defendant’s sexual fantasies,” Johnson said.
A male stripper testified on Monday that he had sex for money multiple times in 2012 and 2013 while Combs watched and masturbated.
Stripper Daniel Phillip recounted an episode in a New York City hotel where Combs threw a liquor bottle in Ventura’s direction, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her screaming into another room.
Defense lawyer Teny Geragos said on Monday that prosecutors were trying to twist Combs’ romantic relationships into a racketeering and sex trafficking case.
“Sean Combs is a complicated man, but this is not a complicated case. This case is about voluntary choices made by capable adults in consensual relationships,” Geragos said in her opening statement.
(Reporting by Jack Queen; Writing by Noeleen Walder; Editing by Howard Goller)
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