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What makes an effective witness?
Twenty-eight people have testified against Sean “Diddy” Combs in his sex trafficking and racketeering trial, including his ex-girlfriends, former employees and men who say he paid them to participate in sex acts. The prosecution has also called everyone from hotel managers to members of the Los Angeles fire and police departments.
On the stand, they’ve recounted Combs’ alleged violence, sexual abuse, drug distribution, blackmail threats and much more. Still, former prosecutor Mark Chutkow believes hotel surveillance video from 2016, in which Combs is seen beating his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and kicking her while she’s on the ground, is more important than any single testimony. “You can’t really cross-examine videotape,” he says. “It’s like a crime scene frozen in time.”
But you still need people who knew Combs intimately — or witnessed his alleged acts — to make the case against him stick. As the trial enters its fifth week, here are the most damning witnesses so far.
Casandra ‘Cassie’ Ventura
There would be no federal case against Combs without Ventura and her bombshell 2023 lawsuit accusing him of physical abuse and sexual coercion. Spending four days on the witness stand, Ventura accused Combs of rape as well as physical and emotional abuse. She said over their 11-year relationship, Combs coerced her into participating in drug-fueled “freak-offs,” in which she would have sex with male escorts. She said Combs filmed these encounters and threatened to ruin her career by releasing the footage. “The case rises and falls with Cassie. Especially the sex trafficking charges,” says Chutkow. Ventura is at the center of many of the charges, and other witnesses, including her friends and mother, have corroborated her testimony. Put simply, she is the witness who can best speak to who Combs was behind closed doors.
‘Mia’
The first witness to testify under a pseudonym, Mia was an employee of Combs’ from 2009 to 2017. Among other allegations of assault, Mia accused Combs of raping her when she worked as his personal assistant. She also said Combs made her take drugs and work five days straight with no sleep, pointing to the underlying racketeering crime of forced labor. Her account of Combs allegedly attacking Ventura outside Prince’s house will be memorable to the jury, according to Chutkow. On the stand, Mia spoke softly, with her head down. She was an effective witness, because she seemingly has nothing to gain from testifying against Combs. Unlike some, she did not file a civil lawsuit against him and is not seeking money or fame.
Capricorn Clark
Clark, who worked for Combs from 2004 to 2018, testified to witnessing his violence against Ventura, as well as alleged incidents of kidnapping and extortion, which are predicate acts of racketeering. Through tears, Clark said Combs kidnapped her at gunpoint and drove her to the house of Kid Cudi, with whom Ventura was briefly intimate. According to Clark, Combs said, “Get dressed. We’re going to go kill [him].” Clark also supported the testimony of Ventura’s mother, Regina, who said Combs demanded she pay him $20,000 the same week he threatened to release her daughter’s sex tapes.
Eddy Garcia
Unlike Combs’ former lovers and employees, who spent days tearfully relating their experiences, Garcia was an unsympathetic witness whose testimony lasted less than two hours. Still, the security guard’s account of an alleged bribe may have a big impact on the jury, experts say. Also, the fact that he was subpoenaed and testified under an immunity order could play well. In 2016, Garcia worked at the InterContinental in L.A., where Combs was caught on surveillance cameras beating Ventura. In exchange for Garcia’s deleting the footage, Combs allegedly ran $100,000 in cash through a money-counting machine and handed it to him in a bag. “Sometimes jurors look at the cover-up as worse than the crime,” says criminal defense attorney John Day. “The image of $100,000 cash in the paper bag — that’s the kind of thing that’s going to stick with them.” Chutkow puts it more bluntly: “What legitimate mogul has a money counter? It sounds like something right out of ‘The Wire’ or ‘The Sopranos.’”
English (US) ·