‘Don’t Tell Nobody’: Witnesses in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial Describe Music Mogul’s Secret, Sordid World of Violence, Prostitutes, and Baby Oil

Shortly after the judge had sworn in the jury in the sex-trafficking trial involving a music producer and rapper, Sean “Diddy” Combs, jurors heard testimony detailing sexual encounters and domestic violence. At one point the descriptions were so graphic that Mr. Combs’s children, who were in the courtroom, got up and left. “Y’all need to rub more baby oil on each other. You don’t have enough on,” a witness testified he was told by Mr. Combs. His lurid testimony came on Monday at the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, where the trial began with jury selection last week. The prosecution’s first witness, Daniel Philip, a sex worker who used to manage a “male revue show,” where male strippers performed for women, was describing how he had sex with Mr. Combs’s then-girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, while the music producer sat in a corner, watched, and pleasured himself. In one instance, Mr. Philip urinated on Ms. Ventura at Mr. Combs’s command, he testified. He would only get paid for these performances, he said, if he ejaculated, and the payments could be as much as $6,000 in cash. Defense attorney Teny Geragos had prepared the jury for the salacious testimony in her opening statement earlier in the day. “You may not not love his love for baby oil,” Ms. Geragos said, “but is it a federal crime?” D’Lila Combs, Chance Combs, and Jessie Combs depart after the opening statements in the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial at the Southern District Manhattan federal court on May 12, 2025. John Lamparski/Getty ImagesMr. Combs, 55, is charged with one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking by force, and two counts of transportation for purposes of prostitution. If convicted, he faces a maximum of life in prison. Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges. An assistant U.S. attorney, Emily Johnson, argued in her opening remarks on Monday that the case was not about Mr. Combs’s sexual preferences, but about the “criminal enterprise” he allegedly ran — using drugs, violence, and blackmail tactics — to coerce women and men into fulfilling his carnal desires. “Let me be very clear on this next point,” Ms. Johnson said as she addressed the jury, “this case is not about a celebrity’s private sexual preferences.” “To the public, he was Puff Daddy or Diddy,” Ms. Johnson explained. “A cultural icon, a businessman — larger than life. But there was another side to him, a side that ran a criminal enterprise.”Press and jurors wait to enter for the continuation of the jury selection phase of the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial at the Southern District Manhattan federal court on May 12, 2025. John Lamparski/Getty ImagesMr. Combs, who is also known by his current and former stage names of Diddy, P. Diddy, or Puff Daddy, was once one of the most powerful figures in the music industry. But his reputation and his businesses took a steep fall after Ms. Ventura, his former girlfriend, filed a explosive lawsuit against him in 2023, alleging decades of sexual and physical abuse. Although the lawsuit was settled in a day, it triggered numerous other women (and men) to file similar lawsuits and it laid the groundwork for the criminal charges. “Let’s start with one night,” Ms. Johnson told jurors as she began to describe an evening when Mr. Combs “was on the hunt” for his then girlfriend, Ms. Ventura, who dated him between about 2007 and about 2018. The prosecutor claimed that when Mr. Combs “found out that she was with another man … he took his gun and his bodyguard,” woke up one of his female employees, and “forced her out of her apartment” and demanded that she help him find Ms. Ventura. Ms. Johnson made a subtle reference to the Italian mafia, when she referred to Mr. Combs’s bodyguard as his “loyal lieutenant.” She later emphasized her point when she said Mr. Combs “sometimes called himself the king and he was expected to be treated like one.” When he finally located Ms. Ventura that night, Ms. Johnson went on, “he beat her brutally … kicking her in the back … flinging her around like a rag doll.” The rapper allegedly threatened Ms. Ventura that he would publicize sex tapes he had recorded “of her having sex with male escorts” if she ever dared to share the abuse with anyone. Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and Cassie attends the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2018. Neilson Barnard/Getty Images“He had the power to ruin her life,” Ms. Johnson said. Ms. Ventura was 19 years old when she first met Mr. Combs, and had just released a hit record. “Diddy made her turn down opportunities. … There was never another album.” The prosecution characterized Mr. Combs as a man who forced various women into financial dependency — paying for their apartments and cars — and coerced them into sexual performances he allegedly called “Freak Offs.” Evidence, prosecutors said, would show that the defendant drugged his victims, “so they could have sex for days.” Ms. Johnson said that the defendant did not act on his own. “For 20 years, with the help of his trusted inner circle, he committed crime after crime,” she said. This inner circle, she said, included his bodyguards and other employees who helped organize these “days-long drug-fueled” sex marathons, delivering drugs to the hotel rooms and transporting “escorts across states and even out of the country.” The prosecution focused on two main alleged victims, Ms. Ventura and another unnamed former girlfriend referred to as Jane, and also briefly mentioned a former employee, who claims that Mr. Combs forced himself on her sexually. The horrifying CNN video that shows Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs attacking then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel. Via CNNIn her remarks, Ms. Johnson did not shy away from detailing the alleged beatings, which included, she alleged, stomping on Ms. Ventura’s head. Mr. Combs, she said, beat Ms. Ventura constantly “when she didn’t answer the phone,” and “when she took too long in the bathroom.” The defense had its response ready, arguing that “violence is not racketeering” nor “sex trafficking.” Ms. Geragos pointed out that “domestic violence is called assault,” and if her client had been charged with assault, “we would not be here for eight weeks.” “We will take full responsibility here,” she told the jurors. “My client is not proud of that.” Mr. Combs, she said “has a bad temper, and sometimes gets so angry, he gets out of control.” But he did not, she said, coerce anyone into having sex. The defense attorney, whose father is a celebrity defense attorney, Mark Geragos, took a moment to introduce her client to the jury. “This is Sean Combs,” she said and the defendant stood up from the defense table and looked directly at the jury. The former music mogul, who used to dress in tailored suits and flashy fur coats, wore a simple gray sweater and gray pants, matching his gray hair and gray goatee. The presiding district judge had ruled before the trial that he would be allowed to appear in regular clothing in the courtroom, instead of wearing a prison jumpsuit. Mr. Combs has been detained at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since his arrest last September. The judge denied him bail three times, despite the great exertions of Mr. Combs’s legal team to set up an arrangement by which he could live in his Florida estate. Cassie Ventura’s husband, Alex Fine, departs after the opening statements in the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial at the Southern District Manhattan federal court on May 12, 2025. John Lamparski/Getty ImagesHis mother, Janice Combs, sat in the second row of the gallery, next to six of his seven children and other family members who were present on Monday. During the breaks she would waive at him, and he blew kisses to her. “He never married, has seven children by four different women,” the defense attorney told the jury, adding that her client dated numerous women at the same time and simply “had a different sex life.” “The government has no place here in this man’s private bedroom,” she went on, arguing that the sexual encounters that the jury would hear about during the trial “should never be heard in a federal courtroom.” She asked the jury not to “judge his sex life.” “Adult choice is a free choice,” she said, arguing that evidence would show that the “women made free choices for years,” and consented to the sex. Charlie Liucci, Justin Combs, and Misa Hylton arrive for the continuation of the jury selection phase of the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial at the Southern District Manhattan federal court on May 12, 2025. John Lamparski/Getty ImagesMs. Geragos further said the “toxic” relationship between Ms. Ventura and Mr. Combs was plagued by jealousy. Their story, she claimed, was about “two people who deeply, deeply loved each other and their inability to remain faithful.” “Mr. Combs is extremely jealous,” she said, but so was Ms. Ventura. The reason why Ms. Ventura decided to officially end their decade-long on-and-off relationship in 2018, the defense claimed, was because she was jealous of Mr. Combs’s former partner, the late Kim Porter, who was the mother of four of his children. Ms. Porter died at age 47 from pneumonia in 2018. At her funeral, Mr. Combs described her as his “soulmate,” and that’s when, the attorney argued, Ms. Ventura knew their relationship had no future. “She was never going to be his wife, or the love of his life,” the attorney told the jury, and so she decided to leave him. “The role of jealousy is critical,” the defense attorney went on. The second victim, referred to as Jane, who dated Mr. Combs more recently, was jealous of the 11-year-long relationship he had had with Ms. Ventura. According to the defense, these women were drawn to Mr. Combs because “he had a vision that few other people have.” Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, center, motions a heart sign to his family in attendance as he is escorted out of lock-up by U.S. Marshals, on the first day of his trial, May 12, 2025, in New York. Elizabeth Williams via APThe violent fights were caused by “jealousy and drugs,” she justified. There was no coercion, only consent. The women, the defense argued, were “capable strong adult women” who made “free choices,” and chose to be with Mr. Combs, often for several years. “What is their motive?” the defense attorney asked the jury. She claimed Ms. Ventura was in financial trouble, living with her parents, when she filed the lawsuit against Mr. Combs, which resulted in a $30 million settlement. After the lunch break, the prosecution called its first witness, Israel Florez, who worked as a security guard at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016, when surveillance cameras caught Mr. Combs chasing Ms. Ventura down a hotel hallway, shoving her to the ground, kicking her as she lay curled up on the floor, and at one point throwing a vase in her direction. Mr. Florez testified that after responding to a call about “a woman in distress” on the hotel’s sixth floor, he encountered Mr. Combs wearing only a towel and sitting on a chair, “slouched down, like with a blank stare … like a devilish stare, just looking at me.” Mr. Combs allegedly offered him a wad of cash and said, “Don’t tell nobody,” which Mr. Florez viewed as a bribe, and declined. Lawyers for Sean Combs, Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos, speak to the media after a hearing at U.S. district court on September 17, 2024, in New York City. John Lamparski/Getty ImagesHe further testified that Ms. Ventura appeared to have an injury to her eye, but refused to call the police. “She didn’t respond to any of my questions,” Mr. Florez said, adding that she told him, “I just wanna leave.” When questioned by the defense as to why Mr. Florez failed to mention the black eye in his incident report, he said he did not add every detail. The testimony by the next witness, Mr. Philip, was so salacious and shocking that Mr. Combs’s children got up from the courtroom and left. In 2012, Mr. Philip, the sex worker and male revue manager, received a phone call one night from his boss, who told him that he should head to the legendary Gramercy Park Hotel in New York and strip at a bachelorette party. Cassie Ventura and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs appear at the premiere of ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story’ on June 21, 2017, in Beverly Hills, California. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, fileBut when he arrived at the hotel, Ms. Ventura opened the door and there were no other women. According to Mr. Philip’s testimony, she wore a red wig, sunglasses, high heels, and lingerie, and told him it was her birthday and her husband “wanted to do something special” and would he mind “rubbing baby oil on her back.” When Mr. Philip entered the hotel suite, he saw Mr. Combs sitting in a chair in a white robe, baseball cap, and a bandana that covered his face. The baby oil rubbing, for which he was handed a stack of cash of several thousand dollars, quickly led to sexual intercourse between Mr. Philip and Ms. Ventura, which Mr. Combs observed from his chair, while he pleasured himself. Mr. Philip was called back to the hotel, he testified, by Ms. Ventura that same night and asked to have more sex with her, while Mr. Combs sat in his chair and watched. From that night on, Mr. Philip would be called frequently to meet the two at various hotels, he said, but also at Mr. Combs and Ms. Ventura’s New York apartments. Family and supporters of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs arrive to the courthouse in New York, Monday, May 12, 2025. AP/Seth Wenig“One time,” Mr. Philip remembered, the defendant “tried getting us to role-play like we just met at an airport. We were not very good at that at all, so I think we skipped past that one very quickly.’’ In another instance, Mr. Combs allegedly told him and Ms. Ventura “to slow down … that it was getting too hot.” Mr. Philip testified that he never asked for a single dollar, and was “happy to be involved with people of such notoriety,” but that he would receive up to $6,000 in cash at times. He remembered that he was only paid if he ejaculated, and that he had difficulty performing after he witnessed Mr. Combs physically abuse Ms. Ventura. “I was sitting on the couch, she [Ms. Ventura] was sitting on her computer,” he testified. They had just had sex. Mr. Combs was in the bedroom. “I heard him yell out, ‘Babe, come here.’” Ms. Ventura, the witness said, asked Mr. Combs “to hold on a second.” Then, Mr. Philip said, the music producer stormed out of the bedroom. “I saw a bottle fly out of the bedroom and past her and hit the wall. … He grabbed her by her hair … dragged her to the bedroom. … She was screaming … I could hear him slapping her. She was screaming, ‘I am sorry. I am sorry.’” Mr. Philip said that he heard the defendant yelling, “When I tell you to come here, you come here now and not later.” The witness paused. “It came out of nowhere. I was terrified. I was shocked … I didn’t know what to do.” An assistant U.S. attorney, Maurene Comey, the daughter of a former FBI director, James Comey, who was questioning the witness, asked why he did not call the police. Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs in 2004. AP/Jennifer Szymaszek“My thought was that this was someone with unlimited power. And I might lose my life,” Mr. Philip replied. There were more other violent incidents, he said, and at one point, “I asked her why is she staying with this guy if he’s hitting her and beating her like this. I tried to explain to her that she’s in real danger if she stays with him. She basically tried to convince me that, ‘It’s okay, I’m okay.’”Defense attorneys began cross-examining Mr. Philip in the late afternoon, but did not get to finish. The cross-examination will resume on Tuesday. Ms. Ventura is expected to testify this week, possibly after Mr. Philip. Any nondisclosure provisions she signed as a condition of her $30 million settlement do not apply to criminal proceedings.

‘Don’t Tell Nobody’: Witnesses in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial Describe Music Mogul’s Secret, Sordid World of Violence, Prostitutes, and Baby Oil

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