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The artist of Bad Boy Records, Dawn Richard, was described as fifth witness during the sex trafficking and racket trial and racketeering on Friday, while prosecutors were looking to corroborate the assertions that the music magnate brutally defeated his ex-girlfriend of longtime Casandra “Cassie” Ventura.
Richard, a talent in small groups of the MTV reality series of Combs Make the group Who later joined the entirely female group of Bad Boys, Danity Kane and the R&B trio Diddy – Dirty Money, rushed into the courtroom, avoiding making visual contact with his former label boss. When Richard has wrongly said the bad color of the Combs – White Pull instead of the cream – while showing combs for the Court, he set up his two hands to identify.
With the testimony of Ventura still fresh in the minds of jurors earlier during the day, a prosecutor of the Southern New York district quickly arrived at the heart of Richard’s testimony on Ventura. Richard testified that she had
“Never seen” anything like a case of alleged physical violence where Combs attacked Ventura in 2009 for a lot of eggs.
“He went downstairs to scream, belligerent, asking him where his food was, and started hitting her over her head, struck her and beat her on the ground before us,” Richard told jurors. (Richard said that his Comrade from the currency Diddy-Divery Kalenna Harper was present for the alleged assault.)
Racant a scene that she previously described in a civil trial against Combs, Richard said that she was in the kitchen of the Los Angeles of Combs that evening while Ventura cook eggs for Combs. She said that Combs went downstairs and asked to find out where her food was.
“He came to the coming to her and took the pan with the eggs in it and tried to hit her over her head with her, and she fell on the ground,” she said.
“It didn’t seem to be completely struck her,” she continued. “She went to the fetal position … I was afraid for her.”
Richard was in the first stages of testimony of the events that followed – Combs calling for a meeting with a locked door with her and Harper and threatening them – when Combs’ principal lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, raised an objection. The American district judge Arun Subramanian decided that it was a good place to end the day. Richard will continue the testimony on Monday
Richard’s dramatic account, delivered to a federal audience room in Lower Manhattan, followed after Ventura spent four days testifying to the violence it would have endured.
In his trial submitted last September, a week before the arrest and indictment of Combs, Richard allegedly alleged that the billionaire businessman had harassed and abused him during their employment relationship, then threatened his life after having witnessed it wildly Ventura. According to his trial, Richard was in the room when Combs met Ventura for the first time almost 20 years ago. At that time, Ventura was a 19-year-old budding singer and Combs was a “predator” label boss at the end of the thirties. Richard also described the incident in 2009. “I asked you for my shit. I can’t bear the female dog’s, you never do well!” She cited Combs, saying that he seemed “raised on drugs”.
“Combs pushed Ms. Ventura against the wall and smothered it, then picked up the hot pot of eggs and threw it on the ground in a fetal position,” said the trial of Richard. “Cursed and screaming, Mr. Combs dragged Ms. Ventura on the stairs.”
According to his complaint, Richard was “terrified” by the attack and received a frightening message from Combs during a registration session the next day. “If you say something, there will be consequences,” Combs said in Richard and Harper. “People eventually disappear.”
In his trial, Richard said that Combs also submitted it to years of his own physical, psychological and financial violence. She said he had regularly groped at her buttocks and her breasts without authorization and had once tried to hit her when she dared to take a break in a rehearsal to eat and rest. She said that Combs was swinging her fist on her face, but a bodyguard grabbed her and locked her in a cold Bentley belonging to a business. She said that Combs had left her there for hours, unable to escape because the compartment in which she was had no interior door handles.
In another harmful story, Richard allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly in 2005, she saw the former Combs and the mother of three of her children, Kim Porter, leaving the Manhattan of Combs in tears, “with visible facial injuries, including a lacerated lip.” (Porter died later at the age of 47 of Lobaire pneumonia in 2018.)
Prosecutors clearly hope that Richards allegations will strengthen their case that Combs has used his resources and industry guard status to get what he wanted and cover his traces. According to his accusation act, Combs commissioned a criminal business between 2004 and 2024 which carried out and hidden a litany of crimes, in particular sexual traffic, forced work, kidnapping, criminal fire, corruption and obstruction of justice. Combs vehemently denied allegations. His lawyers have also rejected dozens of prosecution against sexual abuse against him since Cassie opened the valves of his sex traffic complaint filed in November 2023.
“Regardless of the number of legal proceedings, this will not change the fact that Mr. Combross has never sexually assaulted, nor tampered with sex – men or woman, adult or minor,” said the Combs legal team Roller. “Fortunately, a fair and impartial judicial process exists to find the truth, and Mr. Combs is convinced that he will prevail in court.”
During his live testimony in a courtroom in the city center of Manhattan – delivered when he was eight months pregnant with his third child with her husband Alex Fine – Ventura described her 11 -year relationship with the combines as loving but later very abusive and exploiting, as a “work” which left him “trapped” and “terrified”. She said that Combs was expecting that she lives in constant waiting to satisfy her sexual desires. If she dared to resist her requests, Combs submitted her to physical violence as well as to threats that he would release intimate videos to humiliate her and “ruin”, she said.
Combs, 55, pleaded not guilty to accusations of sexual traffic, transport to engage in prostitution and racket conspiracy. If he is found guilty, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
According to the prosecutors, a basic function of the alleged criminal enterprise of Combs was to fill and cover its appetite for very orchestrated sex marathons powered by drugs called “freak-offs” and “wild king”. Ventura testified that she had participated in hundreds of these meetings, with combs ordering her to engage in sexual acts with male sexual escorts while he masturbated and recorded interactions.
According to his lawyers, Combs was simply a “swinger” who delivered his eccentric sexual trends with other fully consenting adults. They admitted that Ventura was the victim of a last episode of domestic violence at the Intercontinental Hotel in 2016, but they refuse women victims of bands.
During the trial until now, the jury of eight men and four women saw photos of the alleged wounds of Ventura in the hands of combs, in particular bruises, black eyes, a cut on his eyebrow and a lip fat. They also repeatedly watched a combat video giving kicks and dragging Ventura in an intercontinental corridor. The prosecutors used their first witness in the case to present the heartbreaking video, which was obtained for the first time by CNN last year.
The video, considered as a key evidence in the case, was also played several times while Ventura testified. She said to the jurors, the combs have “frequently” become violent, often during breakdowns. “He would grab me, pushed me down, struck me on the side of the head, kicked me, as you call it,” she said.