The lawyers of Sean Combs worked on Thursday in court to represent her former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, like a voluntary and complete participant in the sexual marathons with prostitutes, while they were looking to undermine her heartbreaking story of an abusive and coercive relationship traced with violence.
The credibility of Ms. Ventura is at the heart of the case of the government, in which they charged M. Combs, the musical magnate, sex trafficking and racketeering. Earlier this week, she told the jury of eight men and four women of the way she had undergone hundreds of degrading sexual meetings and many injuries of an erroneous attempt to please a man she loved.
But on the fourth day of Mr. Combs’ trial, the defense tried to redesign Ms. Ventura, a singer known professionally under the name of Cassie, because not almost the victim that she had described. During the counter-examination, Anna Estevao, one of Mr. Combs’ lawyers in a team led by Marc Agnifilo, made her read text messages several times in which she expressed her graphic enthusiasm for their sexual meetings, including the now famous “dressings” involving paid escorts.
“I’m still ready to panic Lolol,” said Ventura in a 2009 message.
In another exchange of the same era, Ms. Ventura expressed her enthusiasm in graphically sexual terms, and he said to her: “I can’t wait to look at you. I want you to get hot.”
She replied: “Me too. I just want it to be uncontrollable.”
The jurors looked at the text messing dam, which were displayed on screens in front of them, sometimes leaning forward to look more closely.
Combs pleaded not guilty to the accusations and his defense argued that the government is trying to criminalize unconventional, but legitimate sexual relations, between consenting adults. During her first two days on the stand, Ms. Ventura said that she could sometimes have signed the interest to avoid the anger of Mr. Combs, and she recited a litany of incidents in which she was beaten when she failed.
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