Dawn Richard to speak after Cassie Ventura testimony last week
Dawn Richard and Combs’ attorneys arrive at court
Former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard arrived at court shortly after 8 a.m.
Combs’ attorneys, including Xavier Donaldson, Alexandra Shapiro and Marc Agnifilo, were also seen arriving this morning.
Here’s what Dawn Richard said in court Friday
Dawn Richard, a former member of Danity Kane, an all-girl group Diddy created on MTV’s “Making the Band,” took the stand Friday and testified that she saw Combs physically assault Ventura in his Los Angeles home in 2009.
Richard alleged he threw Ventura to the ground, struck her with a skillet full of eggs, put his arm around her neck and dragged her upstairs.
“I was scared for her, I was scared to do anything,” Richard testified.
Richard is expected to continue her testimony today.
Marriage therapist speaks on Combs and Ventura’s relationship
Sean “Diddy” Combs and Cassie Ventura were in a decadeslong relationship. As Ventura wrapped up her testimony in the trial, NBC News’ Gadi Schwartz spoke to Sonnet Daymont, a licensed marriage and family therapist, about the couple’s relationship.
How the Combs trial might affect hip-hop
Combs spent most of his career as an influential figure in hip-hop; now he is on trial over human trafficking allegations. NBC News’ Gadi Schwartz talks to Variety Senior Music Writer Steven J. Horowitz about how this trial might affect the genre.
Cassie Ventura’s graphic testimony may set the stage for what’s to come
In the first week of testimony in Combs’ federal sex trafficking trial in New York, Cassie Ventura, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, described over four days on the witness stand a tumultuous relationship with the music impresario that began in her early 20s and lasted on and off for over a decade. As the government’s star witness, her responses gave a window into a world centered around paid sexual encounters lasting days and sometimes occurring weekly — known as “freak offs” — that she said she was forced to endure under the threat of physical and psychological abuse.
The “freak offs” were so regular, she said, they “became a job.”
Much of what Ventura, 38, testified to was graphic, from the sex acts with male escorts to the violence, including the fights with Combs that left her covered in bruises, she said, if she attempted to refuse a freak off. A visibly pregnant Ventura also recounted how, she said, Combs raped her on her living room floor in 2018, which he has denied.
Read the full story here.
