Kanye West arrived at Diddy's trial, but wasn't let into the courtroom.
POOL/ Reuters
Ye appeared at Manhattan court to support Sean "Diddy" Combs at his sex-trafficking trial.
But the rapper was not allowed in the main courtroom where Combs is on trial.
Combs' trial is in its fifth week, with the prosecution expected to rest next week.
Ye, the embattled rapper formerly known as Kanye West, showed up Friday at Manhattan federal court to support Sean "Diddy" Combs at his criminal sex-trafficking trial.
Ye made the surprise appearance at the courthouse shortly after 11 a.m. on Friday. The "Jesus Walks" rapper, though, never actually made it into the 26th-floor courtroom where Combs' trial is unfolding.
He instead sat in the front row of an overflow room on the courthouse's 23rd floor after he was denied entry into the main courtroom where the trial is taking place, courthouse sources told Business Insider.
One source told BI that Ye was not on Combs' list of approved family members or friends.
"He did not wait in line like everybody else from the public," the court source said. "No one gets special treatment."
Courthouse staff opened an overflow room where Ye and Christian Combs, one of Combs' children, were able to watch the proceedings on a screen, a court source said. Ye's bodyguard and another Combs supporter also sat with them, according to the source.
Ye, who wore an outfit of all-white denim, listened to about half an hour of testimony before he left. At the time, Jonathan Perez, a former personal assistant for Combs, was on the witness stand.
Milo Yiannopoulos, who has been a spokesman for Ye, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
The list included Ye. During the trial, he's only been mentioned once, in passing, by another one of Combs' assistants.
Kid Cudi, another celebrity listed on the juror questionnaire, testified earlier in the trial about a dispute with Combs involving Cassie Ventura.
Ventura, a singer who was signed to Combs' record label and dated him for around a decade, testified at the start of the trial that Combs abused her and coerced her into participating in elaborate sex performances called "freak offs."
The rapper wasn't named in the case, but Combs' lawyer described him as "an icon in the music industry" and as someone who was "very close with Combs" and had collaborated with him professionally.
Jane testified that she attended the sex performance as part of a trip to Las Vegas in January 2024 to celebrate the unnamed rapper's girlfriend's birthday.
According to Jane, that rapper flirted with her while they watched another man and woman have sex in a hotel room.
"He said something along the lines of that he thought I was beautiful, and he always wanted to blank me," Jane said Thursday, censoring herself in the courtroom.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian said he personally saw Combs appearing to send signals to the jury while one of his lawyers grilled a prosecution witness about her interactions with Combs.
If it happened again, Subramanian warned the defense team, the judge would consider talking to jurors about what Combs was doing — and it could result in "the exclusion of your client from the courtroom."
"I really meant it," the judge said. "There should be no efforts whatsoever to have any interactions with the jury."
Prosecutors allege Combs sex-trafficked women by forcing them to engage in "freak offs" — dayslong, drug-fueled sexual performances involving male sex workers.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, and his attorneys say all his relationships were consensual. The blockbuster trial, playing out in a lower Manhattan courtroom, is expected to conclude within a month.
The apparent head-nods came up during Thursday's cross-examination of Bryana "Bana" Bongolan, a friend of R&B artist Cassie Ventura, the prosecution's star witness.
Bongolan testified she once watched Combs throw a knife at Ventura, and Ventura throw it back.
Bongolan also said Combs once leaned into her face and announced, "I'm the devil and I could kill you," and said that in September, 2016, he hoisted her into the air and dangled her over Ventura's 17th-story balcony.
During the cross-examination that Combs reacted to, defense attorney Nicole Westmoreland highlighted apparent inconsistencies between what Bongolan has alleged in a civil lawsuit, her interviews with prosecutors, and her testimony.
Westmoreland pursued a familiar theme pushed by Combs' legal team: That his accusers have financial motives to accuse him of wrongdoing.
In one example, Bongolan's ongoing lawsuit accuses Combs of violent sexual assault, an allegation not made in her June 4 testimony, though Bongolan did tell jurors that Combs' hands cupped her breasts before he hoisted her up from under her arms.
She testified about the graphic moments in her 11-year relationship with Combs.
In the courthouse, the atmosphere was grim as Ventura shared shocking details.
From the start of Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial, everyone was waiting for Cassie Ventura to appear. She was the star witness.
I expected Ventura's testimony to be explosive. But it turned out to be more graphic than I ever imagined.
In the courtroom, I noticed the distress on the face of Ventura's husband. His wife, who is eight months pregnant, was telling her alleged abuser and a room full of strangers about some of the worst moments in her life.
In September, federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused Combs of racketeering and sex trafficking. They say he used the vast power and resources of his record label and other businesses to arrange drug-fueled and baby oil-lubricated sexual encounters called "freak offs" with Ventura, other victims, and male escorts.
Combs pleaded not guilty and denies the sex-trafficking allegations, but he hasn't quite denied all wrongdoing. His legal team said he participated in "mutual abuse" with Ventura, and that the two frequently fought physically. This was a domestic violence case, they argued — ugly, but not criminal sex trafficking.
In her testimony, Ventura talked about a messy, 11-year relationship during which she fought for scraps of Combs' attention. He was often busy with other women and his various businesses, she said. Ventura participated in the freak offs out of love for Combs, she said, but they were never something she wanted.
The hip-hop mogul introduced her to the idea of freak offs about six months into their relationship, when she was 22 and owed him another nine albums as part of a record label deal, Ventura said. Combs would watch as Ventura would have sex with other men, who were paid thousands of dollars in cash, according to court testimony.
In text messages and emails shown as trial evidence, Ventura talked about arranging the freak offs, which required dropping by a Duane Reade to pick up baby oil, lubricant, candles, and condoms.
The freak offs could last up to four days, requiring drugs to maintain stamina, she said. They typically required up to 10 large bottles of baby oil, she testified. Everyone "had to be glistening," as she described it. At one point, the judge stepped in to ask prosecutors to pull back from the deluge of baby oil questions.
The disturbing nature of the testimony was only heightened by Ventura's appearance. She is due to have a baby in June and was visibly pregnant. One courtroom marshal said he was prepared to deliver her baby if the stress of testifying induced labor. I wasn't sure if he was joking. One of the prosecutors urged the judge to require Combs' lawyers to wrap up cross-examination. "We are afraid she could have the baby over the weekend," she said.
Cassie Ventura's testimony transfixed the courtroom
Over the years, I've reported on about a dozen trials and countless more court hearings. There were the uncomfortable benches of Donald Trump's criminal trial. The rowdy fans at the R. Kelly Trial. The cold December mornings when I lined up for the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. The ultracompetitive Sam Bankman-Fried trial, where getting in line at 4 a.m. still wasn't early enough to get inside the courtroom.
But nothing in my experience has compared to the Combs trial, which began Monday morning after a week of jury selection and is supposed to last two months.
People stayed in line overnight before the trial, hoping to make it into the courtroom.
Lloyd Mitchell for BI
Ever since Ventura accused Combs of sexual abuse in November 2023, Combs' legal quagmirehas been one of the biggest stories in the country. Combs paid Ventura $20 million to settle her case, but a flood of other accusers filed additional civil lawsuits against him. When prosecutors brought the criminal case against Combs, it was put on the fast track.
No longer the image of a pop star, Combs dresses for court like an office drone, wearing thin crewneck sweaters over white button-down shirts. He rarely betrays any emotion, occasionally nodding during his lawyers' arguments or huddling with the attorneys beside him.
His large family, including his mother and seven children, has been in the courtroom to show their support. Every day, Combs flashes them heart symbols with his hands. Their expressions, during trial proceedings, have remained neutral. The gravity of the situation — Combs could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted of all charges — is obvious.
During breaks, courtroom artist Christine Cornell took photos of her trial illustrations.
Lloyd Mitchell for BI
On the other side of the courtroom aisle are Ventura's support group, which includes her husband, Alex Fine, and several relatives. At some of the more raw moments of Ventura's testimony, Fine's face looked visibly pained. When her texts with Combs about the freak offs were shown to the jury, he broke his gaze and looked at his lap.
As Ventura testified in graphic detail, the courtroom was rapt. She spoke in a faint, dispassionate voice.
The grim atmosphere made the otherwise unbelievable details of the trial feel upsetting rather than dramatic. On social media, these details fly by as jokes. For Ventura, they left scars. In February of 2023, years after she left Combs, Ventura couldn't sleep, she testified.
"I couldn't take the pain that I was in anymore, and so I just tried to walk out the front door into traffic," she told the jury. "And my husband would not let me."
'I've been to a Diddy party'
On Monday, for opening statements, the line outside the lower Manhattan courthouse began the previous afternoon. Same Old Line Dudes, the standard-bearer line-sitting company for New York trials, declined to disclose the precise time their clients booked because "it's very competitive," a receptionist told me.
During lunch breaks, live-streamers went outside and updated their followers on what unfolded indoors. Christine Cornell, a courtroom sketch artist, took photos of her illustrations in natural sunlight to share them with the media. Vicky Perez, who had come to New York City from Connecticut to watch the trial's opening day, said she's a fan of Ventura, having purchased her first album when she was in the fifth grade. Perez wanted her to "get justice," she said.
"I want to see his downfall," she said of Combs.
Vicky Perez attended the trial to show support for Cassie Ventura.
Lloyd Mitchell for BI
The scene overwhelmed even Dennis Byron, the editor in chief of the Hip-Hop Enquirer, who said he's reported on the hip-hop scene for 35 years. He covered Comb's career since he was an up-and-coming artist.
Byron — who wore a tweed vest and trousers in the May afternoon heat — said he's attended and photographed Combs' extravagant "White Parties," where he took photos of the likes of Combs, Ventura, Kim Porter, and Jay-Z.
Dennis Byron, editor in chief of the Hip-Hop Enquirer, has been chronicling Sean "Diddy" Combs' career for decades.
Lloyd Mitchell for BI
These parties took on a new meaning following the indictment against Combs, where they've been widely re-interpreted as sex parties (virtually every single celebrity who has been asked about this denies they were sex parties). But celebrities have been having orgies forever, Byron said. He remembers hearing about them in the 1980s. Flying in escorts — as prosecutors said Combs did for freak offs — wasn't anything new either, Byron said.
"Well, I never stayed for those," Byron said. "I never stayed for those orgies. But I'm sure they happen. But I never seen them."
Combs' White Parties were meant to show off his power as "a tastemaker," Byron said. Combs accrued cultural capital — something prosecutors later said he used to coerce his victims.
"Remember, that party was a regular party," he said as I wrapped up our conversation. "Ain't no party like a regular Diddy party."
Combs' lawyers acknowledge his flaws — but say he's not a sex trafficker
Combs' trial was taking place in the same 26th-floor courtroom that saw the trials of Sam Bankman-Fried and two of E. Jean Carroll's lawsuits against Trump. (Bankman-Fried and Combs share a jail unit together; Trump is in the White House.) As with all federal court cases, there's no broadcast or livestream.
Karen Agnifilo-Friedman, Luigi Mangione's lead defense lawyer and the husband of Combs' lead lawyer Mark Agnifilo, often showed up to watch. The court staff had also set up three overflow rooms for journalists and members of the public to watch the trial on a closed-circuit camera feed, plus two rooms for members of the in-house press like me.
Several people I spoke to said they were willing to keep an open mind, but believed it would be hard to shake the memory of watching the video of Combs beating Ventura and dragging her through a hotel hallway.
"I'm going to try to give him a fair shake, said Oota Ongo, a YouTuber who livestreamed himself walking around the courthouse after watching opening statements. "We all saw the Cassie tape. That Cassie tape is just something that I can't get out of my head."
Oota Ongo went outside during breaks in the trial to share updates with his YouTube followers.
Lloyd Mitchell for BI
Depending on the day, I alternated between the courtroom itself and a press room. When I checked out an overflow room one day, I spotted a prominent federal prosecutor who had put Bankman-Fried behind bars. He was paying close attention to Combs' lawyer, Teny Gregagaros, giving Combs' side of the story in an opening statement.
While Combs may have been an unpleasant, angry, jealous, and violent man — especially when drunk or high — he was not guilty of sex trafficking, Gregagos insisted. At most, he was responsible for domestic violence, she conceded.
"He is not charged with being mean," Gregaros told the jurors. "He is not charged with being a jerk."
The first witness was a security guard at the Intercontinental Hotel, who testified about the infamous video where Combs assaulted Ventura (Combs just wanted to get his phone back from her, his defense lawyers said).
Next, before Ventura, was a male dancer who said he acted as an escort. He testified about being asked to carefully urinate during sex.
"Apparently, I was doing it wrong because they both stopped me and told me that I was supposed to let a little out at a time and not go full, like, take a leak on her," he said, in a quote that perhaps best encapsulated both the graphic nature of the trial testimony and how prosecutors say Combs intimately choreographed people around him to satisfy his own desires.
During Ventura's cross-examination, Combs' lawyers pulled up texts in which Ventura indicated she enjoyed the freak offs.
But Ventura, in her testimony earlier, said she just wanted to make Combs happy. She loved him. But she never wanted the freak offs, she said.
"It made me feel worthless," Ventura testified. "Like I didn't have anything else to offer him."
A federal jury in Manhattan has heard R&B singer Cassie Ventura — Combs' ex-girlfriend and the catalyst for his public downfall — tearfully testify about the humiliating sexual violence she says she endured throughout their 11-year relationship.
Ventura's mother has described physically confronting Combs during a 2011 argument over her daughter's missing cellphone, and two male strippers have regaled the jury with sometimes X-rated testimony about "freak offs."
Along the way, there have been numerous celebrity mentions, including pop icon Britney Spears and actor Michael B. Jordan. Rapper Kid Cudi capped an already busy week two by describing his brief romance with Ventura, testifying that a jealous Combs broke into his LA home and unwrapped his family's Christmas presents.
Combs was arrested in September on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution — the culmination of months of lawsuits and public accusations of sexual assault and other misconduct.
It was Ventura's November 2023 lawsuit that began this avalanche of accusations. Filed about 10 months before the criminal charges, it accused Combs of rape, physical abuse, and controlling her during their relationship. The lawsuit was settled a day later for what Ventura testified was $20 million.
Combs has denied the charges. The music tycoon is arguing through his defense team that all sexual encounters were consensual, including the alleged drug-fueled freak offs. The defense also argues that any violence fell far short of sex trafficking and that his accusers have a financial motive to implicate him.
Here are some of the most striking moments from the trial so far.
Kid Cudi said Combs broke into his house and probably torched his Porsche
A courtroom sketch of Kid Cudi, left, testifying at Sean "Diddy" Combs' criminal trial.
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
Kid Cudi took the witness stand in Combs' trial on May 22, telling jurors that in December 2011, the music tycoon broke into his Hollywood Hills home, enraged after finding out about the rival rapper's short-lived romance with Ventura.
Kid Cudi, given name Scott Mescudi, told the jury that he returned home after the break-in to find the Christmas gifts he'd planned to give his family unwrapped and opened. His dog, he said, had been shut in the bathroom.
Mescudi said he was tipped off about the break-in in real time, when one of Combs' trusted assistants called him to say she was outside his house— and that Combs was inside.
"Motherfucker, you in my house?" Mescudi recalled telling Combs over the phone as he raced home to confront him.
Combs was gone by the time he arrived, Mescudi said.
Mescudi also told the jury that some two weeks later, his Porsche was firebombed while in his driveway.
Jurors had first heard about the firebombing when Ventura took the witness stand in the first week of the trial and described Combs' jealous rage on learning of her brief fling with Mescudi. She told jurors that Combs lunged at her with a corkscrew, threatened to release their sex tapes, and warned he'd torch Mescudi's car.
Combs discovered the relationship during a freak off in Los Angeles when he went through Ventura's phone, she testified.
"I just remember him putting like a wine bottle opener between his fingers and, like, lunging at me," Ventura said, adding that Combs' "eyes blacked out, super angry."
The Porsche "arson" is a specific element in the racketeering charges against Combs. Prosecutors alleged in court papers that Combs ordered his underlings to torch a vehicle "by slicing open the car's convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside the interior."
Cassie's mom describes 'trying to hit' Combs in a fight over her daughter's stolen phone
Regina Ventura, mother to star prosecution witness Cassie Ventura, arrives for her own testimony at the Manhattan sex-trafficking and racketeering trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs.
Kylie Cooper/REUTERS
Regina Ventura corroborated her daughter's testimony, where she alleged two of Combs' violent, jealous rages over romantic rivals.
The first was from 2011. The mom said Cassie Ventura came home to Connecticut for the Christmas holidays that year with a large bruise on her back.
Cassie Ventura previously testified that the bruise was from being kicked to the ground by Combs after a fight over alleged romantic rival Mescudi.
The mom showed jurors a Blackberry text Cassie Ventura had sent while en route to Connecticut, memorializing what the daughter testified were Combs' threats to release sexually explicit videos, including on Christmas Day.
Combs also demanded that the family pay him $20,000 for "expenses," the mom testified. The family complied, taking out a second mortgage because "I was scared for my daughter's safety," she testified. Combs returned the money days later, the mom told jurors, giving no explanation for the refund.
Regina Ventura also told jurors about a 2016 incident that her daughter also testified about.
It was shortly before the younger Ventura's 30th birthday. Combs had swiped her cellphone, Cassie Ventura testified, after learning about her affair with an unnamed professional NFL player.
When she returned to her Los Angeles apartment without her phone, her mother, who was visiting, called the police and confronted Combs outside the building as her daughter remained upstairs, the elder Ventura testified.
"I was yelling and screaming and trying to hit him," the mom told jurors. "He did give it back," she told jurors of the missing phone.
Cassie screamed "Isn't anybody seeing this?" as Combs attacked her on his private jet, ex-assistant says
Singer and key prosecution witness Cassie Ventura was in tears on the witness stand at the Sean "Diddy" Combs sex-trafficking trial.
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
In some of the most compelling testimony of the trial, a former Combs personal assistant described watching — and doing nothing — as his boss brutally attacked a cowering Ventura in the bedroom of the rapper's private jet.
Former personal assistant George Kaplan, 34, said the attack happened on a crowded flight to Las Vegas in the latter half of 2015. Kaplan said he heard the sound of screams and shattering glass coming from the jet's bedroom.
He said he turned to see Combs standing over Ventura with a "whiskey rock glass" in his hand, as she cowered on the bed.
"After the glass crashed, Cassiie screamed, 'Isn't anybody seeing this?'" Kaplan told the jury.
"Did you look away?" asked a federal prosecutor, Assistant US Attorney Maurene Comey. Kaplan said he did.
"And after you looked away, what did you hear?" the prosecutor asked.
"Further glass crashing and chaos."
When the prosecutor asked what, if anything, the Combs security staff did in response, Kaplan answered, "Nothing."
No one, he said, went back to check on Ventura after Combs left the bedroom to rejoin his employees.
"I was 23 years old," Kaplan said in explanation of his own inaction. "All I wanted to do was have a great job in the entertainment industry."
Ultimately, he told the jury, this and similar domestic violence incidents drove him to quit.
Another former personal assistant told of the night he said Diddy went looking for Suge Knight
David James, a former assistant for Sean "Diddy" Combs.
John Lamparski/Getty Images
Combs' former personal assistant spent two days on the witness stand, and in his most dramatic testimony, described how a 2008 run for cheeseburgers at an all-night diner nearly escalated the East Coast-West Coast rap wars.
It started at 4 a.m. in the parking lot at Mel's Drive-In in Los Angeles, the ex-assistant, David James, testified.
Combs' trusted security guard, Damian "D-Roc" Butler, noticed that Suge Knight, cofounder of rival recording studio Death Row Records, was sitting in an Escalade just a few parking spots away.
James, Combs' personal assistant from 2007 to 2009, testified that he was at the wheel of Combs' silver Lincoln Navigator when Knight and D-Roc faced off.
"What are you doing in my city?" James, according to his testimony, remembered hearing Knight asking Combs' security guard, who had introduced himself as "D-Roc, Biggie's boy," a reference to the rapper Notorious B.I.G.
Within moments, James and the bodyguard saw someone pass a gun to Knight and watched as four SUVs pulled up into different corners of the parking lot, he told jurors.
James testified that he was ordered by D-Roc to speed back to Combs' Hollywood Hills estate. There was no mention of whether they drove back with or without the cheeseburgers.
Once back home, and as Ventura protested in tears, Combs grabbed three guns for the ten-minute drive with D-Roc back to Mel's, testified James, who said he was still the driver.
Knight was nowhere to be found upon their return, James said.
"It was the first time I realized my life was in danger," the former PA testified, telling jurors that he sent in his resignation soon after.
Dawn Richard testified about a brutal beating, an alleged death threat, and flowers
Former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard testified against Sean "Diddy" Combs at his trial.
Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for MTV
Danity Kane singer Dawn Richard was the fifth prosecution witness, and her testimony on May 16 alleged that in 2009, Combs brutally beat Ventura after she took too long to cook him dinner.
"Where's my fucking egg?" Richard recounted to the jury Combs shouting in 2009, as he stormed into the kitchen of his rented Los Angeles mansion.
"He took the skillet with the eggs in it and tried to hit her in the head, and she fell to the ground," Richard testified.
Ventura cowered on the floor "in a fetal position" as Combs punched her and kicked her, she testified. Then he dragged her upstairs by her hair, she said, adding that she then heard the sound of screaming and breaking glass from the third floor.
The next day, Combs called Ventura and Richard into the mansion's first-floor recording studio, she said.
"He said that what we saw was passion, and it was what lovers in a relationship do," Richard said.
She said Combs told the two women that "he was trying to take us to the top, and that, where he comes from, people go missing if they say things like that, like, if people talk. And then he gave us flowers."
While back on the stand on May 19, Richard re-emphasized that she felt this was a threat to her life.
The details in the testimony came as a surprise to Combs' lead defense attorney Marc Agnifilo, who called it prejudicial and "just a drop dead lie."
"It didn't happen," the lawyer complained to the judge. "And the reason we know it didn't happen is that Ms. Ventura didn't talk about it" during her four days on the witness stand.
On cross-examination on May 19, Richard agreed that she only recalled the alleged death threat in speaking with prosecutors earlier this month. It had gone unmentioned, she agreed, during a half-dozen prior interviews with prosecutors.
Combs attacked Ventura over bathroom use, prosecutor and ex-bestie say
Combs and Ventura had an on-and-off relationship for 11 years.
Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images; Johnny Nunez/WireImage
Ventura was beaten by Combs for the most minor of perceived infractions, including taking too long in the bathroom, prosecutor Emily Johnson said in her opening statement.
"He beat her when she didn't answer the phone when he called. He beat her when she left a freak off without his permission," Johnson said.
Ventura's ex-best friend, Kerry Morgan, was called to the witness stand on May 19 and told jurors about two attacks on Ventura she witnessed, including one while on vacation in Jamaica in 2013.
Morgan said Ventura at one point went to the bathroom at the residence where they were staying, and Combs said, "She's taking too long."
"A few minutes later, I heard her screaming — like guttural. Terrifying," Morgan said. "He was dragging her by her hair on the floor."
Morgan told jurors that she saw Combs push Ventura to the ground, causing her to hit her head on the paving bricks.
"She didn't move. She fell on her side," Morgan said, adding, "I thought she was knocked out."
Ventura, too, had testified that arguments with Combs would regularly result in physical abuse.
Ventura —who dated Combs on and off from 2007 to 2018 — described six separate times when Combs' attacks left her with injuries, with the most severe beating occurring in Los Angeles in 2009 following a party Combs had hosted at a club called Ace of Diamonds.
Ventura said she punched Combs in the face after he called her a "slut or a bitch" for talking to a record producer. Combs retaliated in the back seat of a chauffeured luxury vehicle by punching and kicking Ventura throughout a ten-minute ride to the rapper's rented mansion, she said.
She said she hid under the back seat to escape the attack. Combs demanded she stay hidden in a hotel for a week so her bruises could heal, she said.
The surprising things Combs kept in his luxury NYC hotel room while waiting to be arrested
Sean "Diddy" Combs was arrested in September 2024.
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
The prosecution's fourth witness took the witness stand briefly on May 16 to detail what she and other Homeland Security investigators say they found inside Combs' suite at Manhattan's Park Hyatt New York after his September arrest.
Combs had checked into the luxury Midtown hotel, his lawyers have said, in case federal prosecutors in Manhattan had asked him to surrender voluntarily.
Special Agent Yasin Binda told the Combs jury she photographed what her colleagues found inside the room.
Those items included a clear plastic bag of baby oil bottles found inside a duffle bag. There were three more bottles of baby oil in his bathtub, alongside two bottles of personal lubricant.
Two more bottles of lubricant were recovered from a nightstand drawer, next to a prescription pill bottle she said held two small baggies containing a pink powder.
On the living room floor was a large blue party light of the kind Ventura testified were used to illuminate freak offs.
Similar bags of pink powder have previously been seized from Combs and tested positive for ecstasy and other drugs, a prosecutor had said in court the day after Combs was arrested.
Ventura's big settlements after her lawsuit and that infamous hallway-beatdown video
Cassie Ventura testified over the course of four days at Sean "Diddy" Combs' trial.
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
In some of her final moments on the witness stand, Ventura was asked by the defense about a legal settlement that she said she is on the verge of receiving from the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles.
"I think it was $10 million," Ventura said of the settlement, hesitating when asked for the total amount agreed to.
The InterContinental is where security cameras captured Combs beating Ventura in a hallway in 2016, as she tried to flee what prosecutors say was one of Combs' freak offs.
The jury was shown the infamous footage at the beginning of the trial.
Johnson, the prosecutor, said in her opening statements that at the time of the attack, Combs paid a security guard at the hotel $100,000 in a brown paper envelope in exchange for the footage.
Combs apologized for his actions in the video after CNN published the footage last year.
It was the second big-money settlement revealed in Ventura's testimony.
Earlier in her testimony, Ventura told jurors that Combs paid her $20 million to settle her civil suit against him in 2023.
Britney Spears and Michael B. Jordan became the biggest celebrity mentions of the trial
Britney Spears was among the celebrities mentioned at Sean "Diddy" Combs' trial.
During a cross-examination, Ventura was asked to tell the jury about the 21st birthday party Combs threw for her in 2007, at a club in Las Vegas.
The party was a significant moment in the Combs-Ventura story. Ventura testified that Combs, who recently signed her to his record label, gave her an uninvited kiss in a bathroom, sparking their relationship.
"I believe there were other celebrities there in attendance?" defense attorney Anna Estevao asked Ventura, who answered yes, there were.
"Sean was there, and he brought Dallas Austin, he brought Britney Spears," Ventura said, referring to the "Oops!… I Did It Again" singer and the record producer. "I think those were the two people that stand out to me," Ventura added.
Asked how a 21-year-old of limited fame was able to attract such big names to her party, Ventura credited Combs, saying, "That was all him."
Jordan's name came up as the cross-examination focused on 2015, when Combs became suspicious that she was having an affair with the actor.
"Is Michael B. Jordan a celebrity?" Estevao asked.
"I would say so," Ventura answered, sounding surprised.
Combs overdosed on opioids at the Playboy Mansion, Ventura said
Sean Combs went to a party at the Playboy Mansion and got sick on painkillers, Cassie Ventura testified.
Jeff Minton
Both Combs and Ventura were heavy opioid users, the R&B singer testified — and on one late night in February 2012, the pills he took made the rapper seriously ill, she said.
"Was that around the time that Whitney Houston died?" Estevao, Combs' defense attorney, asked about the timing.
"Yes," Ventura said.
That evening, the pair went to a sex club in San Bernardino, California, and then she went home, and Combs went to a party at the Playboy Mansion, Ventura told jurors.
"Well, from what he told me, he took a very strong opiate that night, but we didn't know what was happening, so we took him to the hospital," Ventura testified.
There, she said, she learned that he had overdosed on whatever painkillers he had taken, she said.
Ventura said she first joined Diddy's freak offs out of love
Ventura is the prosecution's key witness in the criminal trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs.
"I was just in love and wanted to make him happy," Ventura told the jury.
Ventura testified that in 2007, Combs first proposed "this sexual encounter that he called voyeurism, where he would watch me have a sexual encounter with a third man, specifically another man."
"I didn't want to upset him if I said it scared me or if I said anything aside from, 'OK, let's try it,'" she said.
While on the stand, Ventura described in detail what went on during freak offs. Prosecutors say Combs arranged, directed, and often electronically recorded the sex performances.
Ventura testified that Combs would urinate and ask escorts to urinate on her during the freak offs.
"It was disgusting. It was too much. It was overwhelming," she said. "I choked."
For the law firms choosing to fight Trump's executive orders targeting them, rather than striking deals with the president, the Paul Weiss deal has turned into a potent weapon.
They have cited Trump's quick revocation of the order — just six days after it was initially issued — to argue that they never had any legitimacy in the first place. The order, had it been carried out, would have revoked the security clearances of Paul Weiss lawyers out of "the national interest" and barred them from entering government-owned buildings, potentially including even courthouses and post offices.
The argument emerged again in a Washington, DC, federal courtroom on Thursday afternoon as a lawyer representing the firm Susman Godfrey told a federal judge that Trump's turnabout on the Paul Weiss order was evidence that the White House never really believed the law firms posed a national security risk.
"There was no change in circumstances with respect to the trustworthiness of Paul Weiss between the issuing of that executive order and its rescission a few days later," said Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., a lawyer at Munger Tolles representing Susman Godfrey. "And I think in some ways that tells you all you need to know about whether there's anything legitimate about the suspension."
The decision divided the legal profession. Critics said that by choosing to reach an agreement with Trump instead of fight in court — as Perkins Coie had at the time — Paul Weiss empowered Trump to go after more Big Law firms.
Eight more Big Law firms made deals with Trump, averting altogether possible executive orders targeting them, and pledging a total of nearly $1 billion in pro bono hours toward Trump's political priorities.
For the four law firms fighting executive orders — Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey — the Paul Weiss deal had the opposite effect.
It was a clear indication, they have all argued, that the legal justifications for Trump's orders were baloney.
Under legal precedents, government agencies are required to conduct an "individualized review" to issue and revoke security clearances, judges have ruled in the cases. Reversing the Paul Weiss order in under a week was clearly too short a time to individually weigh whether each person working at the firm posed an actual national security threat, the four law firms have each argued.
Thursday's court hearing, overseen by US District Judge Loren AliKhan, was over whether the judge should permanently block the order targeting Susman Godfrey, a law firm that represents The New York Times in a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, and has represented Dominion Voting Systems in its lawsuit against Fox News.
Richard Lawson — who has been left as the sole Justice Department lawyer defending the government in these cases — said in the hearing that the executive branch has "inherent discretion on security clearances." He has also argued that because each of Trump's executive orders says security clearances should be reviewed "consistent with applicable law," they could not possibly be illegal.
The four judges, overseeing the lawsuits, including AliKhan, have not been persuaded. Each swiftly issued a temporary restraining order blocking the implementation of the executive orders.
On Friday, US District Judge Beryl Howell issued the first order permanently blocking one of the executive orders against Perkins Coie.
She wrote in her 102-page opinion that Trump's actions and public statements indicated his executive orders had nothing to do with national security, but were instead motivated by his dislike of specific people working at particular law firms and because he wanted "big numbers" in pro bono pledges from each firm.
"None of these agreed-upon policy or practice changes appear to explain or address how any national security concerns sufficient to warrant the Paul, Weiss EO could have changed so rapidly," Howell wrote of the announced deal between Trump and Paul Weiss. "The speed of the reversal and the rationale provided in the Paul, Weiss Revocation Order, which focused only on agreements to advance policy initiatives of the Trump Administration, further support the conclusion that national security considerations are not a plausible explanation."
Howell also addressed the circumstances of Trump's executive order targeting Susman Godfrey. After signing the order, Trump announced, "We're just starting the process with this one." It was an indication, Howell wrote,that Trump may view the orders as leverage for a negotiation rather than trying to legitimately address national security issues.
"Whether President Trump's focus on 'the process' refers to enforcement of the Susman EO or that this Order was the opening gambit — akin to the Paul, Weiss EO followed by the Paul, Weiss Revocation Order — for deal negotiations, is unclear," Howell wrote.
On Thursday, AliKhan, asked Lawson if he wanted to share a view on how Howell's order might affect the Susman Godfrey case.
Lawson stumbled through a response.
"No, I don't. There's nothing in there that, I mean, obviously we have a big issue with the finding," Lawson said, laughing. "But I don't think there's anything urgent I need to bring to the court's attention."
President Donald Trump has issued a series of executive orders targeting law firms he doesn't like.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
A federal judge appeared impatient with a DOJ lawyer defending a Trump Big Law executive order.
Jenner & Block asked a judge to permanently block the order, saying it was illegally targeted.
A Justice Department lawyer struggled to come up with legal rationales at a Monday hearing.
A federal judge appeared poised to hand Big Law another win after he snapped Monday at a Justice Department lawyer attempting to justify President Donald Trump's executive order targeting one firm.
During Monday's court hearing, Richard Lawson, the Justice Department attorney, argued that Trump's order could not possibly be illegal because it required federal agencies to act "consistent with applicable law."
Lawson appeared to struggle through arguments, at times not giving direct responses to questions from the judge.
Lawson said Trump could target Jenner & Block, the Big Law firm, because the president said "Jenner discriminates against its employees based on race" — even though no court or government agency had come to that conclusion.
"Give me a break," US District Judge John Bates snapped, as Lawson said federal agencies should be allowed to follow the order because the firm engaged in "racial discrimination."
The oral arguments, in a Washington, DC, federal court, were part of Jenner & Block's lawsuit seeking to permanently block Trump's March 25 executive order targeting the firm. Bates previously ordered the federal government to pause the implementation of Trump's order.
Jenner & Block, represented by the elite law firm Cooley LLP, is one of four firms that sued the government seeking to stop Trump's executive orders. Nine other Big Law firms all made deals with Trump, collectively promising nearly $1 billion in pro bono work, to avert orders targeting them.
The law firms fighting the Trump administration, so far, are winning. Federal judges have swiftly issued temporary restraining orders preventing the executive orders from going into effect. And in court hearings for other cases, federal judges have been similarly impatient with Lawson's arguments, Business Insider reported Sunday.
During one hearing last week, for the law firm Perkins Coie's lawsuit seeking to stop an executive order, a judge referred to some of the Justice Department's positions as "hyper-technical legal arguments that may have no merit."
'A pretty strange reading'
Bates, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, appeared impatient Monday as he questioned Lawson over the legal basis for Trump's order.
Trump, in the first section of the order, said he targeted Jenner & Block in part because the firm previously hired a lawyer who worked for former Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller, among other reasons.
The order would strip Jenner & Block employees of security clearances, cancel any contracts with the firm and its clients, and ban all employees from government buildings and from meeting with government officials.
"Ordering guidance specific to Jenner & Block that limits access to federal buildings, access to federal employees, access to federal agencies — the rationales in Section One that warrant that are what? Are what?" Bates asked Lawson.
In court filings and in Monday's hearing, Lawson has argued that judges should give broad leeway to Trump's power to target people and companies through executive orders, especially for purported national security issues.
Lawyers for Jenner & Block say the order is effectively government retaliation for free speech, violating the First Amendment. They also say Trump's order would violate their clients' right to counsel, as well as Jenner & Block's obligation to advocate on behalf of their clients without government interference.
The law firm argues that the order would also effectively kick several Jenner & Block lawyers out of their military reserve service because that service depends on their having security clearances.
Lawson said federal agencies would review security clearances on "an individual-by-individual basis" rather than issuing a blanket suspension of everyone at the firm to remain "consistent with applicable law."
Bates said he found that to be "a pretty strange reading" of the executive order.
"You think an agency official, given this executive order, is going to say, 'Well, I'm going to do a person-by-person analysis to decide whether I will suspend the security clearances of these seven Jenner people subject to my agency,'" the judge asked incredulously. "Is that what you think?"
Bates also reserved sharp questions for Jenner & Block's attorney, Michael Attanasio, during the hearing.
He asked whether it was necessary to strike down the entire executive order, or just the parts that directly harmed the law firm.
Attanasio asked the judge to issue a permanent injunction against the entire order, much like Trump withdrew the executive order he issued for Paul Weiss, which struck a deal with the president. The lawyer said Trump issued the order against Jenner & Block as "retribution."
"It was set up to be one form of punishment, and it should be taken down the same way, just as the President did for Paul Weiss," Attanasio said. "The difference being this time it gets taken down not on bended knee, but because this court enforces the constitution."
Bates said a written opinion in the case was "forthcoming."
Correction: April 28, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of pro bono work the nine other firms collectively promised. It is nearly $1 billion, not $1 trillion.
Sean "Diddy" Combs during a hearing for his criminal sex-trafficking case.
REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg/File Photo
Prosecutors want to seal Sean Combs' "freak off" videos in sex-trafficking trial.
Combs is accused of sex trafficking and racketeering, with Cassie Ventura as a key victim.
The judge is hammering out resolutions for different legal issues before the trial in May.
Prosecutors want to make sure the public doesn't see the "freak off" videos made by Sean "Diddy" Combs, which they say they'll present as exhibits in his upcoming criminal sex-trafficking trial.
Even the audio from those videos shouldn't reach the ears of the public and the press, argued Assistant US Attorney Madison Smyser in a court conference on Friday.
"These are extremely sensitive videos, they are going to involve videos of 'freak offs,'" Smyser said. "They involve other parties, victims, and, in some videos, Mr. Combs."
Smyser said prosecutors and defense lawyers were working out a way so that only jurors would be able to see and hear the videos when they're presented in court.
The primary victim prosecutors identified is Cassie Ventura, who was in a romantic relationship with Combs for 10 years. According to prosecutors, Combs sexually abused Ventura through "freak offs," which they described as elaborate and lengthy sexual performances that Combs staged, masturbated during, and often recorded.
Prosecutors have identified another four accusers who are expected to testify as victims in the trial. The judge has also allowed one "propensity witness," a yet-identified former romantic partner who is set to testify by name about alleged prior abuse, but who is not considered a victim in the criminal charges. Some of the witnesses are also expected to include sex workers who were recruited for the "freak offs."
Combs was attentive during Friday's court conference, the penultimate one before jury selection begins on May 5.
The hip-hop artist wore khaki jail garb and what appeared to be laceless Vans slip-on shoes.
Before the start of the hearing, Combs hugged his three female attorneys and then shook hands with one of his male lawyers. Throughout the conference, he sipped water from an unusually small plastic cup on the defense table before him.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is overseeing Combs' criminal case, asked prosecutors to provide legal justifications for sealing the "freak off" videos, which would become court records if they were to be entered into evidence.
Prosecutors said they'd file a letter providing examples where similar procedures were followed in other cases. In R. Kelly's trial in Brooklyn, the court had jurors watch videos of sexual abuse on small screens in front of their jury seats while wearing earphones, while journalists and members of the public were kept out of the courtroom.
A victim's 'medical procedure'
During Friday's hearing, prosecutors also said they wanted an accuser to testify about a "medical procedure" that they said was a result of a "freak off."
Combs's defense attorneys argued that the procedure wasn't sufficiently related to the conduct described in the indictment, and that the accuser shouldn't be able to testify about the experience.
Submaranian ultimately concluded that he'd wait and see what else the victim would testify about before deciding if prosecutors could ask questions about the purported medical procedure.
The judge also issued a ruling narrowing the scope of what Dawn Hughes, an expert on interpersonal relationships, would be allowed to testify about. Hughes, who previously testified in the trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, and is expected to testify in Harvey Weinstein's ongoing trial, is expected to testify on behalf of Combs. Combs's lawyers have said she would partly testify about the "swingers" lifestyle the singer participated in.
Subramanian previously resolved most of the other legal issues ahead of the trial, which is set to take place in the same lower Manhattan courtroom where Combs's jailmate Sam Bankman-Fried had his trial.
The judge allowed Combs's team to obtain drafts of Ventura's memoir for cross-examination, but did not allow them to obtain other notes, emails, or bank records they had requested.
Sean "Diddy" Combs.
Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP, File
Subramanian also forced Warner Bros. to give Combs' lawyers interview footage with two accusers taken for a Max documentary, "The Fall of Diddy." An attorney for Combs said in Friday's hearing that they expected to receive the footage next week.
The contents of Ventura's memoir have never been made public, and little information about it is known.
Combs's lawyer Marc Agnifilo discussed the memoir in a September court hearing, where he unsuccessfully asked a judge to allow Combs to stay out of jail ahead of the criminal trial.
Agnifilo said Combs and Ventura had a consensual, if complicated, 10-year relationship, and that she essentially tried to extort him with the memoir draft after it ended. In November 2023, Combs settled a civil sexual abuse lawsuit that Ventura brought against him.
"'My client has written a book, and she is going to publish it, but if you want to buy the rights, then you will have the exclusive rights, and she won't be able to publish it.'" Agnifilo said, characterizing an offer from one of Ventura's previous lawyers. "'And you know what, you can buy the rights for $30 million.'"
Later, Ventura retained a different lawyer and sued Combs under New York's Adult Survivors Act, alleging sexual abuse,
"'I am not really here to embarrass you anymore to the tune of $30 million; I am going to bring this civil sex claim against you,'" Agnifilo said, purportedly quoting Ventura's other attorney.
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