NEW YORK (TNND) — The sex trafficking trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs resumed on Tuesday with his former personal assistant, David James, returning to the stand.
James worked for Combs from 2007 to 2009 and testified Monday that security staffers would often tell him to stay in his lane and that “This is Mr. Combs’ kingdom. We’re all here to serve in it.” James is the first of Combs’ assistants to testify.
On Tuesday, he said he quit when he realized that his life had been put in danger after he was forced to drive a car in which an angry Combs sat in the back seat with three handguns on his lap.
James said his job sometimes required him to ensure that hotel rooms where Combs stayed under the name “Frank Black” were stocked with the musician’s comforts, including fresh underwear, an iPod, apple sauce, vodka, baby oil, Viagra, and condoms.
There were also surprising moments, James said, like one in 2008 when Combs asked him to bring an iPod from his Miami home to a hotel room. Upon entering, James said he saw Cassie on the bed with a white comforter pulled up to her neck and an unfamiliar naked man running from the room.
Another time, he said Combs summoned him to his office to show him a video he’d recorded at a party of James dancing wildly and told him: “Ok. I’m going to keep this footage in case I ever need it.” James said he took it as a threat to keep him in line.
James also described being required to take lie detector tests administered by a man who claimed to have formerly worked for the FBI twice when Combs was trying to find out who stole cash in one instance and a Cartier bracelet in another. He said that a security agent for Combs told him that Capricon Clark, a former employee, also had to take a lie detector test.
He said Combs was on drugs nearly every day, often taking Percocet by day and ecstasy by night. When he stocked Combs’ hotel rooms, he said, drugs were in a bag dropped off by security, including the pill meant to look like then-President Barack Obama. James said that someone called “One Stop” would bring drugs to Combs; other times, James himself would procure the drugs at Combs’ requests.
The moment when James saw the three guns on Combs’ lap came when he testified that he was involved in Combs’ attempt to confront his music industry rival Suge Knight at a Los Angeles diner in November 2008 — an incident that Cassie also testified about. He said he quit soon afterward.
James had gone to a diner to get food for Combs, and he was joined by one of Combs’ security guards. The guard approached Suge Knight while James ordered the food. When they returned to Combs’ house, he testified that he saw Combs and Ventura outside arguing, with Ventura looking like she was crying.
Combs then demanded that James drive him to the dinner to look for Suge Knight, with Combs in the backseat with three guns on his lap. Suge Knight was gone by the time they got back to the diner.
“I was real shook up by it,” James testified. “This was the first time being Mr. Combs’ assistant that I realized my life was in danger,” James said he gave his notice soon after the incident, according to CNN.
During cross-examination, defense attorney Marc Agnifilo referenced documents from James’ meetings with the government on the diner incident, with the documents having James saying that the diner events occurred inside the diner, when he testified Tuesday that they took place inside. James said that the government notes were inaccurate, maintaining that his memory of the events was consistent.
James also recalled a conversation with Combs’ ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura where he suggested she leave, but she responded that she can’t. James said that he never saw physical violence between Combs and Ventura, but heard them arguing about her career multiple times throughout their relationship.
James testified that Ventura expressed interest in widening her career into modeling and acting, but Combs would tell her that she should be focusing on her music career instead, according to CNN.
Agnifilo also asked James if he was granted immunity for testifying. James said he believed he signed a proffer agreement, giving him some protections from prosecution.
James testified that he once got into an altercation with Comb’s then-chef, a woman, that he said made him upset when she tried to tell him where Combs needed to be at the time. According to James, he “grabbed her two wrists and squeezed her wrists,” telling her to stay in her lane. The incident was then reported to human resources at Bad Boy Entertainment, leading Combs to confront James about the incident. When James told Combs about what happened, Combs told James that he couldn’t put his hands on women, and if he did so again, he would be fired.
Ventura, 38, took the stand for four days last week to testify about the couple’s decade-long relationship involving paid sexual encounters known as “freak offs” that she said she was forced to endure.
Before Tuesday’s lunch break, Sharay Hayes, an exotic dancer known as “The Punisher,” testified that Combs and Ventura brought him into the freak-offs world. He worked as “The Punisher” from 2012 to 2016.
He said a woman, Ventura, using the pseudonym Janet, called around the fall of 2012 and told him it was her birthday and that her husband said she should hire a dancer. Hayes said he thinks she found him through his website, according to CNN.
Hayes said he arrived at the Trump International Hotel in New York City. He said he expected to perform a striptease for a small group of people, but instead found the woman who hired him, whom he later found out was Ventura, alone with an otherwise naked man who hid his face with a burqa-like cloth. That man, he said, turned out to be Combs. Hayes said he did not recognize Ventura and said he believed that she was wearing a wig at the time.
Hayes recalled seeing bottles of baby oil in bowls of water and getting handed a stack of $800 in cash. Later, after Combs watched and directed Ventura having a sexual encounter with Hayes, he said he was handed an additional $1,200. He said he was a fan of Combs but didn’t realize it was him in the room until a subsequent encounter at another hotel where the message on the TV screen said: “Essex House would like to welcome Mr. Sean Combs.”
He said Ventura usually planned the encounters a few hours in advance and met them sometimes as late as 2:30 a.m. Hayes said he never used drugs with Ventura and Combs, but would sometimes be offered alcohol and marijuana.
Hayes said his last session with Ventura and Combs was in 2016.
Regina Ventura, Cassie Ventura’s mother, took to the stand on Tuesday. Regina testified for less than an hour, in part because defense attorney Marc Agnifilo declined to cross-examine her. Regina said she first met Combs in 2006 when Cassie signed to Bad Boy Records.
She said that she was Cassie three to four times a year when Combs and Ventura started dating in New York City. Once they moved to Los Angeles, Regina said she saw Cassie less, mostly over the holidays.
During her testimony, the jury was shown photographs of bruises on Cassie’s body that Regina testified were taken when her daughter came home for Christmas in 2011. Regina said she took the photos to keep as evidence, saying, “She was bruised, and I wanted to make sure that we memorialized it.” The photo was first admitted into evidence during Cassie’s testimony earlier last week, CNN reports.
Regina said she felt “physically sick” when she received an email from her daughter in late 2011 saying Combs was planning to release two explicit videos of her and send someone to hurt her and the man she was seeing, rapper Kid Cudi.
“I did not understand a lot of it. The sex tapes threw me,” Regina told the Manhattan federal court.
Regina, of New London, Connecticut, said she then received a demand from Combs for $20,000 “to recoup money he had spent on (Ventura) because he was unhappy she was in a relationship with Kid Cudi.”
“He was angry that he had spent money on her and she went with another person,” she said.
Regina said she used a home equity loan to make the payment because “I was scared for my daughter’s safety.” Days later, she said, the money was wired back to her, and before long, her daughter was dating Combs again. CNN reports that the government had bank records that showed both transactions.
Before the jury arrived on Tuesday, Agnifilo tried to persuade the judge to disallow the testimony, saying it was “purely prejudicial” because it illustrated the wide difference between the financial status of the Ventura family and Combs. The judge allowed it, though, saying the threats to release sex tapes and harm Ventura made it an instance of “potential extortion.”
The last witness called to the stand for the day was Special Agent Gerard Gannon, of Homeland Security, who was in charge of the search of Combs’ Miami Beach home on March 25, 2024.
Gannon testified that agents executing a search warrant for the property used an armored vehicle to bust through Combs’ security gate and had teams on boats nearby. In addition to weapons, he said they found platform high heels and items that prosecutors say Combs frequently used during his freak-off sex marathons, including lingerie, sex toys, baby oil, lubricant and condoms.
Jurors also saw parts of two AR-15 rifles that federal agents found last year while searching Combs’ mansion on Star Island, a celebrity enclave off Miami. Agents found two loaded magazines as well as the serial numbers scratched off the rifles that were found.
Gannon is set to continue his testimony on Wednesday.
Ventura’s former best friend, Kerry Morgan, also testified on Monday and corroborated that Combs was physically abusive toward the singer.
Morgan, a reluctant witness who acknowledged that she only testified in response to a government subpoena, said she saw Combs beat Ventura at least twice, including once so severely that she thought her friend had been “knocked out,” CNN reported.
She said she encouraged Ventura to break up with him after realizing that the very confident woman she had met in 2001 during modeling gigs had “lost her spark” and had assumed a slumped posture as she catered to Combs’ needs. But she said Ventura was reluctant to end the relationship.
Morgan said that she tried to get Ventura to speak with the police after the hotel altercation in 2016, saying that she never called the police when Combs was violent towards Ventura because Ventura did not want law enforcement involved.
“He controlled everything. She would’ve lost all of her livelihood,” Morgan said, noting that Combs paid for Ventura’s car and apartment, and had her under contract with Bad Boy Records.
Morgan also testified that Combs left her with a concussion after choking her and then slinging a wooden hanger at her in 2018 when he came to Ventura’s Los Angeles home enraged because he thought Ventura was dating someone else, according to CNN.
She said she was going to sue Combs, but Ventura met her at a pizza parlor and had her sign a non-disclosure agreement in return for $30,000 from Combs while accusing her of “milking” and “overexaggerating” the attack. The episode ended the women’s 17-year friendship, with Morgan and Ventura both testifying that they haven’t spoken since.
Former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard resumed her testimony Monday morning after telling the jury on Friday that she saw Combs attack Ventura with a skillet in 2009.
“He came downstairs screaming, belligerent, asking where his food was, and proceeded to hit her over the head, kicked her, and beat her to the ground in front of us,” she testified.
She said that she saw Combs drag Ventura upstairs by her hair and that she heard “glass breaking and yelling,” according to CNN. Richard said she did not call the police because she was afraid and was “scared to do anything in fear of what that might mean for me, too.”
In September 2024, Richard sued Combs, describing years of psychological and physical abuse, including groping, that she says she suffered as he helped launch her career.
Combs, 55, was arrested in September 2024, about roughly six months after federal authorities raided his homes in Los Angeles and Miami. He has been jailed in Brooklyn since his arrest.
He has pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment and faces a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted on all charges. He is facing charges of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, transportation for purposes of prostitution, and racketeering conspiracy.
Prosecutor Maurene Comey said that Scott Mescudi, also known as Kid Cudi, will testify sometime this week. Mescudi and Ventura dated in 2011. The next witnesses to testify is Dr. Dawn Hughes and George Kaplan.
Ventura previously testified that Kaplan was an employee and quit after witnessing the physical abuse from Combs.
If you or someone you know is struggling with abuse, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline for help.
Editor’s Note: The Associated Press contributed to this story.
