A one-time girlfriend of Sean “Diddy” Combs, testifying under the alias “Jane,” told jurors in Manhattan that she spent three straight days in tears—and felt physically sick—after reading Casandra “Cassie” Ventura’s explosive 2023 civil complaint against the hip-hop tycoon. wchstv.com
Jane said Cassie’s description of drug-fueled “freak-offs” with male sex workers tracked her own experience “word for word,” down to what she called the “hotel nights” that defined much of her three-year relationship with Combs. wchstv.com
On the stand this week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey had Jane read dozens of 2023 text messages in which she begged Combs to stop pressuring her into marathon sex sessions and threatened to leave if he withdrew financial support for her Los Angeles home. In one message she wrote: “I am not an animal.” apnews.com
Jane’s marathon testimony is the centrepiece of the prosecution’s fifth week, following four days of direct statements from Cassie, who detailed a decade of alleged coercion and abuse before her own relationship ended in 2018. The government is expected to rest its case next week; Combs’ defence team will then call witnesses in an attempt to undercut the racketeering and sex-trafficking counts that carry a potential 15-year-to-life sentence. apnews.comnbcnewyork.com
While cross-examining Jane, defence lawyer Teny Geragos projected affectionate texts in which she professed love for Combs, hoping to portray the encounters as consensual. The tactic left Jane sobbing but unshaken in her claim that the messages were “part of the pattern” that kept her tethered to a relationship she now likens to psychological captivity. apnews.com
Why It Matters
- Pattern evidence: Prosecutors are using the near-identical narratives of Cassie and Jane to argue a long-running modus operandi—central to the racketeering element of the indictment.
- Settlement spotlight: Cassie’s lawsuit was resolved within 24 hours for US $20 million, a figure the government frames as hush money rather than closure.
- Defence dilemma: The emotional weight of live testimony and corroborating texts may complicate the defence’s strategy of framing the relationships as consensual adult “kinks.”
With the prosecution moving toward a close, the coming weeks will reveal whether Combs’ defence can blunt the cumulative impact of two women who say the same horrors played on repeat.
