Ventura, who dated Combs on and off from 2007 to 2018, is one of the key witnesses in the prosecution’s case. She described the “freak offs,” drug-fueled sex performances at the core of Combs’ indictment that prosecutors say Combs arranged, directed, and often electronically recorded.
In her opening statement on May 12, prosecutor Emily Johnson told jurors that Combs used “lies, drugs, threats, and violence to force and coerce” Ventura and later an anonymous Jane Doe into sex performances that would last for several days. Combs also referred to these events as “wild king nights” and “hotel nights.”
Johnson said Combs taught Ventura that “defying him could and often would end in violence” by brutally beating her for minor perceived infractions.
“He beat her when she didn’t answer the phone when he called. He beat her when she left a freak off without his permission. He beat her when he thought she took too long in the bathroom,” Johnson said.
When Ventura took the stand on May 13, she also testified that arguments with Combs would regularly result in physical abuse.
On May 14, Ventura described six separate times Combs’ attacks left her with injuries, with the most severe beating occurring in Los Angeles in 2009 following a party Combs had hosted at a club called “Ace of Diamonds.”
Ventura said she punched Combs in the face after he called her a “slut or a bitch” for talking to a record producer. Combs retaliated in the back seat of a chauffeured luxury vehicle by punching and kicking Ventura throughout a ten-minute ride to the rapper’s rented mansion, she said.
Ventura said she hid under the back seat to escape the attack.
“I was trying to cover my face,” Ventura said. “Because Sean was stomping on it with his foot.”
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