‘It Gets Dark and Lonely If You Don’t Listen’: Singer Describes How Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Threatened Her Life After She Saw Him Throw a Frying Pan at Cassie Ventura

Federal prosecutors called three more witnesses in the ongoing sex-trafficking trial of the music producer Sean “Diddy” Combs on Monday. They confirmed to the jury much of the testimony his former girlfriend, Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura, had given last week. Ms. Ventura’s mother is expected to testify on Tuesday. Dawn Richard, 41, who had begun her testimony last Friday, had told the jury that she frequently saw Mr. Combs physically abusing Ms. Ventura. Ms. Richard, a singer, remembered one incident, from 2009, when the producer threw a burning hot skillet in the direction of Ms. Ventura in his kitchen.Ms. Richard is a former member of two musical groups formed by Mr. Combs — and signed to his record label, Bad Boy Entertainment — Danity Kane and Diddy-Dirty Money. She said she came to his home one day with Kaleena Harper, another singer from one of the groups, when she saw Mr. Combs come running down the stairs and take a hot skillet from the stove and throw it at Ms. Ventura, who was making eggs for him, luckily missing her head. He then, she said, pushed Ms. Ventura against a wall, grabbed her throat, and ended up dragging her up the stairs. The following day, Ms. Richard testified on Friday, the rapper told her and Ms. Harper to come to his recording studio. When the women arrived, he locked the door and explained that what they had seen in his house was an act of “passion,” that his girlfriend was okay, and that if the women ever dared to tell anyone about what they had seen, they “would go missing.” Dawn Richard arrives at the 66th annual Grammy Awards on February 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, fileOn Monday, an assistant United States attorney, Mitzi Steiner, asked the witness to clarify what she had meant by “they would go missing.” “That we could die,” the singer answered. When asked how she reacted to Mr. Combs’s statement, she said, “I didn’t react at all. Was shocked, but also scared because it was our first time really getting started to record and that was my first time really being in a group with everybody. And I couldn’t believe that this would be the beginning of the journey for us.” She said that henceforward, she would frequently witness Mr. Combs getting violent with Ms. Ventura, that he would “punch her, choke her, drag her, slap her in the mouth … kick her … punch her in the stomach.” She testified that the president of Bad Boy Records, Harve Pierre, echoed the threat that Ms. Richard was not allowed to mention any of the things she saw to anyone. Cassie Ventura and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs appear at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’ in New York on May 4, 2015. Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, file“Harve said it gets dark and lonely. And Mr. Combs used to say this, too. It gets dark and lonely if you don’t listen. It was very much, like, ‘Y’all need to listen to him. Y’all don’t want to deal with what happens if you don’t.’ And that was stated by Harve and Mr. Combs,” Ms. Richard told the jury.The defense had argued in its opening arguments that if Mr. Combs had been charged with assault, “we would not be here for eight weeks.” “We will take full responsibility here,” one of the defense attorneys, Teny Geragos, told the jurors last week. “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.” During Ms. Ventura’s testimony, the defense tried to justify Mr. Combs’s violence as being caused by jealousy, or withdrawal from painkillers, or because he may be bipolar. Witness Kerry Morgan arrives at federal court for the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial, on May 19, 2025, in New York. AP/Ted ShaffreyThe problem for Mr. Combs is that he has not been charged with assault, which would be a state crime in state court. Federal prosecutors have instead brought a case using laws designed to thwart the mob, and people who enslave women in brothels, to charge Mr. Combs with a list of crimes that together could lead to a life sentence. Federal racketeering law, developed to facilitate the prosecution of powerful men and women who are difficult to attach directly to crimes, has a relatively low burden of proof.Besides the racketeering conspiracy, Mr. Combs is charged with two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges. “Violence is not racketeering” nor “sex trafficking … domestic violence is called assault,” Ms. Geragos argued last week. Witness Kerry Morgan arrives at federal court for the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial on May 19, 2025, in New York. AP/Ted ShaffreyBut the types of threats that Ms. Richard was talking about on Monday do in fact support the alleged racketeering charge. The last witness of the day, David James, who worked as Mr. Combs’s personal assistant between about 2007 and 2009, told the jury that when he interviewed for the job, a Bad Boy executive pointed to a picture on the wall and said, “This is Mr. Combs’s kingdom. We’re all here to serve in it.”But the defense pushed back. A former girlfriend of Ms. Ventura’s, Kerry Morgan, told defense attorney Marc Agnifilo, when shown a photograph of herself, Ms. Ventura and other people who would work and hang out in Mr. Combs’s circle, “We look like a loving bunch.” “But from time to time you guys had a lot of fun?” he asked Ms. Morgan. Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, far left, and attorney Marc Agnifilo sit at the defense table during witness testimony in Manhattan federal court, May 13, 2025. Elizabeth Williams via AP“We had a lot of fun, yeah,” she replied. Ms. Morgan recounted several incidents during which she allegedly witnessed Mr. Combs assault Ms. Ventura before she eventually became a victim of his violence herself. She claimed that Mr. Combs let himself into Ms. Ventura’s apartment in 2018 while Ms. Morgan was in the bathroom and came up behind her and choked her. Ms. Morgan said he also hit her in the head with a wooden coat hanger and gave her a concussion.Ms. Morgan said she left the apartment and planned to file a lawsuit after the 2018 assault, but didn’t. She said she met up with Ms. Ventura at a pizza parlor about a month after the incident, where she was told she would be receiving $30,000 from Mr. Combs. She said Ms. Ventura had her sign a non-disclosure agreement. That was the last time she said she and Ms. Ventura spoke. Testimony will resume on Wednesday.

‘It Gets Dark and Lonely If You Don’t Listen’: Singer Describes How Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Threatened Her Life After She Saw Him Throw a Frying Pan at Cassie Ventura

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