Much of Cassie Ventura’s testimony has recounted the allegations she made against Sean Combs in a 35-page lawsuit in November 2023 that first triggered his legal troubles. While on the stand, prosecutors asked her to review the hotel footage from 2016, which shows Combs wearing a towel as he attacks her in a hallway.

Here is a courtroom artist’s sketch of Combs in front of an image of himself during the attack.

The court is on lunch break. The jury is set to return for more testimony from Cassie Ventura at 1:15 p.m. Eastern time.

Prosecutors showed the jury a text Cassie Ventura once sent Sean Combs on Fathers Day. “Can’t wait until we have a baby of our own,” she said. Ventura has previously said she loved Combs considerably despite his abuse during their 11-year relationship.

Combs has six children with various women — none of them Ventura. Ventura has two children with her husband Alex Fine, and she is visibly pregnant with a third as she testifies against Combs.

Cassie Ventura said she felt “trapped” on a commercial flight home from the Cannes Film Festival one year as Sean Combs played videos of her having sex in freak-off sessions, and threatened to release them. “I didn’t want to feel scared anymore,” she said. “He could put these videos out and ruin everything and embarrass me.”

After their flight landed, she said, she and Combs had dinner in New York and immediately proceeded to another freak-off.

Asked if she was ever injured during a freak-off, Cassie Ventura replied that Sean Combs would often “grab me up. Push me down. Hit me in the side of the head. Kick me. You name it.”

Sometimes the pair was alone during the attacks, she said. Sometimes she knew an escort had overheard the assault because they would ask her afterward if she was okay. One time, she said, the escort known as Jules witnessed Combs attacking her directly. These assaults would happen “too frequently,” Ventura said. “A lot.”

Cassie Ventura testified about an incident at her Los Angeles home in August 2013 when Sean Combs allegedly became livid that she had been sleeping on the couch. She said her friends tried to block Combs from beating her, but he hurled her against a bed frame, she said, leaving her with a wound on her eyebrow where she still has a scar.

Ventura took a photo of the injury, she said, because “I didn’t want him to forget what he did … because it’s awful and at the very least I just wanted him to be sorry about it.”

Ventura had been packing to travel to a music festival when Combs exploded, she said. She went to the event with her hair styled over the gash on her eyebrow.

Prosecutors asked Cassie Ventura if she ever left a freak-off before it was finished. She said she had sometimes tried to when it was a “bad time” or when she became scared of Sean Combs’s behavior. She said she would typically find a back exit at the hotel and leave through an alley. But Combs would call her and look for her after she left, Ventura said.

She testified that the only time she actually left the premises during a freak-off was in March 2016 at the InterContinental in Los Angeles — the same incident in which Combs was seen on security footage chasing her down and beating her in the hallway. Every other time, she said, she “ended back in the room” where the freak-off was happening.

Cassie Ventura told the court she and Sean Combs would occasionally go to sex clubs as part of the “swinger’s lifestyle” Combs wanted them to have. She said an escort called Jules would sometimes go with them and, at Combs’s request, have sex with her.

Ventura testified that she disliked the sex clubs but considered Jules a friend and a “safe place,” and preferred to have sex with him than with strangers. “I was just uncomfortable,” she told the court. “I’m not into the person I’m in love with being with someone else. That’s not my thing.”

Cassie Ventura said she was always drunk when she visited sex clubs with Sean Combs, “because I didn’t want to be there sober.”

Cassie Ventura was also asked about the health issues she had as a result of the frequent freak-offs. Ventura said she had a lot of stomach issues because of the constant drug use. She would also have frequent urinary tract infections — sometimes back to back, and sometimes participated in freak-offs while infected.

It got to a point, Ventura said, when Ciprofloxacin, or “Cipro,” a common antibiotic treatment for UTIs, no longer worked for her.

She would also have “stinging and uncomfortable” sores on her tongue — the result of the freak-offs (“the friction in my mouth”) and substance use.

Emotionally, she felt “empty” after the days-long events, she said.

The government has asked Cassie Ventura how she and Sean Combs used to recover after freak-offs. She said they used IV fluids, massages and meals prepared by a chef.

Ventura also had an “ongoing, off-and-on addiction to opiates,” she said, which she would take to “come down” from the drugs she had taken earlier.

“Opiates made me feel numb, which is why I relied on them so heavily,” Ventura said, adding that it was her way of disengaging with what was going on in her life.

The court is now looking at another text exchange between Cassie Ventura and Sean Combs.

During this conversation, Ventura was in Atlantic City hosting a party (because she wasn’t releasing music, her main source of income was hosting club events).

Ventura got word that someone had seen sexually explicit videos of her, and both she and Combs were alarmed.

“Ask what the room looked like … girl you need to get this info,” Combs texted Ventura. Then, “You gotta tell him this is your life and this is serious.”

“This is crazy! Do not let him out of your site. Wtf,” Combs continued, referring to the individual who said he saw the video.

Prosecutors might not show freak-off videos to the jury until after lunch, citing some issues with “screens.” (This may be a reference to computer screens in the courtroom or privacy screens that have been placed over the jurors’ monitors.) The prosecution will continue its questioning of Cassie Ventura in the meantime.

The jury is now walking back into the courtroom.

Here’s a photo from the same event prosecutors showed the jury Wednesday morning. It shows Cassie Ventura and Sean Combs at a party for her film “The Perfect Match” in 2016 — just days after Combs allegedly assaulted Ventura at the InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles when she tried to leave a freak-off.

When prosecutors showed the jury an image from that same event, they highlighted visible bruising on Ventura’s right shin. She testified that a larger bruise on her thigh was concealed beneath her dress.

The freak-off videos will not be shown to the media, so reporters are racing from the press room to grab a seat in the courtroom. They won’t be able to see the videos, but they might see the jury’s reactions.

Sean Combs is sitting in his chair in an intense discussion as he confers with his attorneys. Lead counsel Marc Agnifilo is the first to approach him, whispering in his ear. Brian Steel, another defense attorney, pulls up a seat on the other side of his client. The defense lawyers appear quite anxious. Xavier Donaldson keeps pulling on his fingers.

Lawyers and courtroom staff are busy during the break working out logistics for playing the freak-off footage without the gallery being able to see it.

The court appears to be discussing the presentation of “freak-off” videos while the jury is on a short break. Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo just asked if his team could see the evidence that is about to be exhibited, so they are not shown on the monitors that are on their table.

Judge Arun Subramanian has called a 10-minute recess as they “arrange some stuff” in the courtroom.

Cassie Ventura is now discussing how videos of her from the freak-offs were used to “blackmail” her. She told the court that Sean Combs would threaten to leak the videos — a prospect that horrified her.

“It’s horrible and disgusting. No one should do that to anyone,” Ventura testified. The videos would “make me look like a s—-, be shamed.”

The government is now having a sidebar before they show the next items they will present to the court. Ventura has slumped down in her chair and is looking around the room.

Cassie Ventura testified that Sean Combs controlled every aspect of her life, including their sexual encounters. She walked jurors through January 2016 text messages between the couple. “You know we have to have a proper [freak-off] without no K … I hate K!!!!” Combs wrote in the exchange. Ventura previously testified that Combs orchestrated every detail of these sex sessions, including the lighting in the room and what color her nails were.

Text messages shown to the jury suggest Sean Combs was displeased when Cassie Ventura took ketamine. Ventura told the jury this was because it made her sexually inactive during freak-off sessions.

“It took me out of it for too long,” she said. “We’re just high and not doing any … intercourse.”

This is the view of Cassie Ventura on the closed-circuit video feed at the courthouse:

She has taken off her jacket and is wearing her hair down. There is a monitor in front of her, on which she’s viewing the evidence being presented. There are also two plastic water bottles and a box of tissues. When testifying, she has to lean slightly forward to speak into a microphone. Periodically, she will run her hands over her pregnant belly, or try to stretch her back a little while she’s in the chair.

On Tuesday in court, Cassie Ventura was shown photos of men alleged to have participated in “freak-offs” and asked to identify them by name, and to testify about how and where they were hired and in what cities they participated in the sex sessions.

Now Ventura is being asked to do this again. The escorts are a racially diverse group of men, some of whom Ventura only remembered “vaguely.” She was unsure of some names. There were at least six men shown. Ventura said it was her “job” to hire these men — that it was “expected” of her by Sean Combs.

Ventura said she performed sex acts with all the men shown, and that those who were paid were paid with “Sean’s money.”

Prosecutors showed an image of Cassie Ventura and Sean Combs at an after-party following her 2016 movie premiere, which took place a couple days after her beating in the hallways of the InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles. It shows Ventura in a sparkly green V-neck dress. She is seated with her arm threaded through Combs’s, who is wearing a three-piece suit. In his other hand he holds a drink.

The government pointed out some apparent bruising from the hotel incident, visible on Ventura’s right shin. Ventura testified that she had a larger bruise on her thigh, concealed under her dress.

Sean Combs texted Cassie Ventura after he assaulted her in a hotel hallway in March 2016, demanding she return to the hotel where they’d just had a “freak-off,” according to evidence presented at trial just now.

Combs told Ventura that police were coming to the hotel and she needed to return, but police had not actually been called. “I have a premiere Monday for the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Ventura texted Combs, referring to an event for her starring role in a film. “I have a black eye and a fat lip.”

“You are sick to think it’s okay to do what you’ve done,” she added.

Cassie Ventura testified that after the incident at the hotel, Sean Combs came by her apartment, banging on the door and yelling. This was “normal,” she said. “He showed up … quite a bit.” Ventura didn’t let him in. Later that evening, she went to the home of one of Combs’s security guards, who goes by the name D-Rock. “Living in L.A., I really didn’t have a lot of people,” Ventura told the jury. She considered D-Rock and his wife close friends. Combs also showed up there later that night, Ventura said.

Prosecutors showed an image of a man called Jules, who was the male escort present at the “freak-off” held in 2016 at the Los Angeles hotel that Cassie Ventura said she was trying to flee when Sean Combs beat her.

They also showed a photo of Ventura taken after the incident. Her lip is swollen and she is wearing sunglasses, with her hoodie pulled over her head. She took the photo in an Uber as she left the hotel.

The court is being shown text exchanges between Cassie Ventura and Sean Combs from the day of the 2016 incident at the hotel in Los Angeles. In the messages, Combs is pleading with Ventura. “Call me,” he texted, then, “call now.”

“I went and checked everything and spoke to security … as long as you don’t disturb the other guests, they’ll leave you be,” Ventura wrote to Combs in another message.

The hotel footage has no audio, and for stretches of time Sean Combs is seen talking to Cassie Ventura. Ventura said he was “calling me out my name” — in other words, insulting her and calling her slurs — and told her that she “wasn’t going to leave him there.”

We’re not yet at the material found in two drives the prosecutor has asked Cassie Ventura about.

The prosecutor is asking Ventura to flesh out certain points from her testimony Tuesday. Asked whether she fought back when Sean Combs would physically attack her, Ventura said she did earlier in their relationship. She said she “learned” that doing so would make it “worse for herself” — that it would escalate the violence. Combs sometimes acted surprised and shocked that she fought back, Ventura said. Other times this would lead to more anger and “frustration.”

The government is now asking Cassie Ventura to review the hotel footage from 2016, which shows Sean Combs attacking her in a hallway. This is where the government ended its questioning of Ventura yesterday. The beating marks the only time Ventura ever tried to leave a “freak-off” early, according to her testimony yesterday.

There is a second drive that prosecutor Emily Johnson is asking Cassie Venture about. It holds content from Ventura’s devices, including enhanced video images. Ventura has initialed it to indicate she’s reviewed it.

Cassie Ventura’s testimony is beginning with a thumb drive. Prosecutor Emily Johnson approached the witness stand to ask Ventura to identify it and asked if she’s familiar with its contents. Ventura said she is.

Sean Combs’s family arrived Wednesday amid heavy rainfall at the courthouse in Manhattan, where Cassie Ventura is expected to continue her testimony about the physical and sexual abuse she alleges she endured during her decade-long relationship with the music mogul. Combs’s mother, Janice, and his six adult children were in the courtroom for most, if not all, of Ventura’s graphic testimony Tuesday.

Cassie Ventura is back on the stand. She’s wearing a gray form-fitting turtleneck dress — very similar to what she wore yesterday — and a long dark jacket. The jury hasn’t come in just yet.

Quite a lot of back-and-forth going on right now about how Cassie Ventura will be cross-examined, and with what material. Prosecutor Maurene Comey has raised concerns that the defense has not turned over evidence it may intend to show the jury during its cross, which she says is unfair and contrary to a previous agreement. Included in this evidence are text exchanges between Ventura and Sean Combs. The defense is trying to show that Combs and Ventura had a “mutually” abusive relationship.

When asked by Judge Arun Subramanian what she wanted, Comey replied: “I want their exhibits, your honor. And I want them now.”

Singer Cassie Ventura, Sean Combs’s ex-partner and the star witness in the government’s racketeering and sex-trafficking case against him, is back on the stand Wednesday morning.

Before she continues her testimony, though, the court has to resolve an important issue: whether Ventura and the jurors will be shown clips of the “freak-offs” — sex parties that Combs is accused of forcing Ventura and others to participate in.

Court has started. Sean Combs has arrived from lockup, once again dressed in light colors, and his family is back in court, taking their usual place in the second row behind the defense bench.

The jurors are not in the room yet, and both sides are going over a few procedural matters. It’s confirmed that Alex Fine, Cassie Ventura’s husband, will need to leave the courtroom when certain parts of her testimony come up (specifically, Ventura’s allegation that Sean Combs raped her in 2018 after she attempted to break up with him).

Singer Cassie Ventura, the star witness in the government’s racketeering and sex-trafficking case against Sean Combs, will be back on the stand Wednesday morning after a day of harrowing testimony Tuesday that included detailed allegations of physical, sexual and psychological abuse by the music mogul during their 10-year romantic relationship.

The trial, estimated to last eight weeks at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse in New York City, will not be publicly broadcast. Last week, prosecutors provided potential jurors with a list of 190 names — including celebrities and public figures — that could surface during testimony.

With proceedings now underway, here are the major players expected at court — including attorneys, potential witnesses and family members.

This is an excerpt from a full story.

The press corps is still here in droves. Since last week, the park across the street from the federal courthouse has been flanked with a row of tents, under which are clusters of television cameras and crews. It’s also been a hustler’s paradise: One enterprising man has been selling his spot in line to people eager to get into the courtroom. (The going rate on Monday was $350; now it’s $200.)

The line for Day 3 of testimony in the Sean Combs trial started on Day 2 — with people queuing up outside the Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse before court adjourned in the middle of Cassie Ventura’s grueling testimony Tuesday afternoon.

It’s a much leaner line Wednesday morning than it has been the last two days, when it stretched to the end of the New York City block that includes the federal complex. It’s also a dreary day, with rain steadily drizzling upon the subdued crowd. We’re all waiting for proceedings to kick off inside.