[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I'm Eva Pilgrim. Thanks for streaming with us. The first week of testimony in the high-profile sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial against Sean Diddy Combs coming to a close after four days on the stand. Cassie Ventura, Diddy's ex, and the woman whose civil lawsuit really cracked open this case, wrapping up her testimony earlier in the day. Attorney's getting heated over completing her questioning today. She's eight and a half months pregnant and on the verge of going into labor. Prosecutors claiming the defense, dragging it out, trying to force a mistrial. The testimony, again, graphic. Ventura's husband, Alex Fine, at one point walking out of court as his wife was peppered with questions about allegedly being raped. Also today, Dawn Richard spotted entering court the former member of Diddy's girl group, Danity Kane, who prosecutors also called to the stand. The hip-hop mogul has firmly denied all allegations in this case. We have a lot to get to, including a new statement from Cassie right after she wrapped up her testimony and why Chris Brown's name came up while she was on the witness stand. But first, let's get right to our chief investigative reporter, Aaron Katursky, who has been inside the federal courthouse in Manhattan all week. He joins us outside court right now. Aaron, Cassie Ventura completing her testimony. She's been pretty stoic, but this afternoon she broke down in tears.

[00:01:28] Speaker 2: She did, Eva, and she had kept her composure for most of her four days on the witness stand under really uncomfortable cross-examination and testimony generally. The most intimate, graphic, demeaning things that you could imagine. She spoke about in open court in front of everybody and she broke down today when she was asked by prosecutor Emily Johnson on redirect examination whether Sean Combs had beat her during freak-offs, those marathon drug-fueled sex sessions with male prostitutes, and she said yes. And then she was asked after the defense had suggested she might have been motivated by money here, would she give back the 20 million dollars that Sean Combs gave her as part of a civil settlement? She said, I would give the money back because I would have agency and autonomy and I wouldn't have to work so hard to get those things back. Aaron, at one

[00:02:30] Speaker 1: point during Cassie's testimony, her husband actually got up and left. He had to. Alex Fine

[00:02:38] Speaker 2: was told by the defense that he might be called as a witness. So when Cassie Ventura started talking about the alleged rape she said Sean Combs committed in 2018, that's when he had to leave. It couldn't have been comfortable anyway for him. But the defense had tried to raise questions about Cassie's recollection. At first she said it was September 2018. Then the defense pointed out how she changed the time frame to August of 2018. And then the defense suggested she made it up when her now husband Alex Fine found out that she was having a sexual night with Sean Combs because apparently Fine had FaceTimed her. She didn't answer the call. And later when she was explaining what was going on with Sean Combs, she said Sean Combs raped me. Now of course Cassie disputes that and prosecutors tried to clean that up on redirect, but saying Cassie Ventura had no doubt that Sean Combs did indeed carry out that rape. Aaron, you've been in court all week.

[00:03:44] Speaker 1: Have there been any reactions from the jury that stood out to you? A couple today. You know the

[00:03:51] Speaker 2: jury was very interested in the exchange over Cassie's recollection of the rape allegation. They were paying close attention there. They got a little bored in the middle of the day when cross-examination seemed a bit disjointed and meandering. No real one topic or one time frame. But then toward the end, the jury got to hold some of the evidence. They got to see the money, the drugs, the baby oil that federal agents said they found in Sean Combs' hotel room in Midtown

[00:04:24] Speaker 1: the night he was arrested. Aaron, after Cassie got the stand, two more witnesses were called.

[00:04:29] Speaker 2: Who did we hear from? So the federal agent who helped coordinate the search of Sean Combs' hotel room, she's the one that held up $9,000 in cash, kind of fanned it like a deck of cards for the jury to see. She also testified that there was ketamine and MDMA found in Combs' hotel room and other, well, the kinds of supplies that Cassie Ventura said he would stock for free costs. The night he was arrested in New York back in 2024, and then Dawn Richard, the member of Diddy Dirty Bunny and Danity Kane, she said she was a witness to Sean Combs attacking Cassie

[00:05:06] Speaker 1: Ventura. Aaron Kotorski for us there outside court in lower Manhattan. Thank you so much for joining us all week. Let's bring in our ABC News legal contributor, Brian Buckmeyer. You were also there at court today. What do you think was the standout moment of the day? So I think it was

[00:05:19] Speaker 3: kind of hard to piece together what the standout moment was because as Aaron Kotorski pointed out, the cross-examination seemed to meander at times. And I think on top of that, never really got to land the plane for the point they were trying to make. But as I've been following this case, I thought the timeline was very interesting because we know facts about this case. Cassie Ventura, when she releases her album, of course, when Kim Potter, the mother of Sean Combs' twin daughters and one son, when they had those children, when they broke up. And what's really important, I think, is near this end, because this was the defense is trying to really hone in on, that all of this back and forth, the alleged rape, that consensual sex that she had after the alleged rape. When her now husband finds out about all of this, what the defense is trying to make a point of is the breakup between Cassie and Combs really happens just before Kim Potter dies. And we all know very publicly that Sean Combs comes out and says, Kim Porter was his soulmate. And I think they're trying to make the argument that that's why this all broke up. Not because of the alleged rape, not because of the freak ops, but because of this. Really trying to weave in this narrative of jealousy in this case. They really were trying to kind of talk

[00:06:26] Speaker 1: about the jealousy, the infidelity, that pattern between the two of them. Chris Brown was mentioned today. Apparently Combs accused her of dancing with him. She denied that. What was this all about?

[00:06:40] Speaker 3: So we heard a lot of celebrity names. You're correct. Chris Brown being one of them, dancing with Cassie, according to Sean Combs. We also heard about her dating Kid Cudi for a point of time. And also talking about, of course, Alex Fine, who she was dating at the time, but had that consensual sexual encounter with Sean Combs while, and the defense pointed this out, while she got a call from him. And that was a very tense moment in court because I think they're trying to point out this infidelity, jealousy, back and forth. And a lot of big names were mentioned in

[00:07:13] Speaker 1: this case. Also in court today, there was this heated argument between the attorneys over when they were going to finish Cassie's testimony. What was that all about? So interestingly enough,

[00:07:21] Speaker 3: if you watched us yesterday, we touched on this, about the bit of the gamesmanship. And so it did get really heated for a while because at the end of the day, this case had been going on for a while and the judge had said, this cross-examination, redirect, all of that with Cassie Ventura must end by today because she's eight months pregnant and she has to go off and live her life and give birth. Well, the defense was really, really running out on the clock. And I think in an attempt to try to get the last word there, but through some miracle, they were able to get all the exhibits in. They did end early. There was a recross, redirect, recross, redirect. We went back and forth for a while. Ultimately, Cassie Ventura was off the stand. No issue of mistrial, which the government brought up. And then now we're continuing the case. All right, Brian Buckmeyer, we're gonna

[00:08:03] Speaker 1: have more with you in just a little bit. As Brian mentioned, Cassie Ventura is nearly nine months pregnant and there was some urgency to wrap up her testimony today because she's due any day now. I want to bring in ABC News medical contributor, Dr. Lok Patel. Okay, so break this down for us. How urgent was it really for her to be done with this testimony?

[00:08:22] Speaker 4: You know, Eva, there is an urgency to discuss a safe and healthy birth plan when someone is at nine months. Generally speaking, if somebody is in a healthy pregnancy and everything's going okay, people can safely work up until their due date. This can obviously change depending on the situation. You also have to think about if a job is high risk and the long hours and the physical and mental toll it must take to sit in a courtroom all day long. This is why this is an important decision that has to be taken with an individual and a healthcare team for the safest option and to make sure there's enough of a buffer to prepare for that delivery. And Cassie Ventura testified

[00:08:55] Speaker 1: today that throughout her pregnancy, she's continued to take the drug Suboxone. Can you explain what that medication is used for? Does that make her pregnancy more high risk?

[00:09:05] Speaker 4: You know, Suboxone is a medication that is commonly used to treat opioid use disorder and it can be used in pregnancy. It's actually made up of two medication. One is to kind of reduce the risk of cravings and one is to reduce the misuse probability. And so it can be used safely in pregnancies. And this is much safer than having a pregnancy in someone who has an untreated opioid use disorder, not only when it comes to the effects this could have on a pregnancy or developing baby, but also the risk of overdose. So technically speaking, any pregnancy where substance use disorder is involved is considered high risk, but a pregnancy where someone is being medically supervised with medication assisted treatment and taking Suboxone, generally speaking, can be safe. And this is much better than someone going through a pregnancy without any treatment,

[00:09:53] Speaker 1: both for mom and for the baby. And just to be clear, you are not her doctor. You are a medical doctor and we are really grateful to have your analysis. This has to be a stressful experience. Are there any risks that come from high stress so late in pregnancy?

[00:10:10] Speaker 4: You know, Eva, multiple studies, including recommendations from national organizations, such as the March of Dimes and ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, have warned about the potential effects of both chronic and acute stress on pregnancy health. This can increase the risk of blood pressure, blood flow to a baby. This can affect the immune system and potentially cause some complications such as preterm labor. Now, again, it depends on the individual, but this is why managing stress alongside a whole host of mental health conditions

[00:10:39] Speaker 1: is so important during pregnancy. Dr. Patel, thank you so much for being with us. Still ahead, Cassie's message to her supporters after getting off the witness stand. Stay with us. Welcome back. You're watching Burden of Proof, the case against Diddy. Week one of testimony in the Sean Diddy Combs trial coming to an end. We've got Brian Buckmeyer stepping to the shoes of the defense, Bernardo Villalona as the prosecution. Both of you were in court today, but before we get into it, Cassie Ventura's lawyer read a statement for her. Let's listen.

[00:11:24] Speaker 5: This week has been extremely challenging, but also remarkably empowering and healing for me. I hope that my testimony has given strength and a voice to other survivors and can help others who have suffered to speak up and also heal from abuse and fear. For me, the more I heal, the more I can remember, and the more I can remember, the more I will never forget.

[00:11:56] Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear both of your reactions to that, Bernardo.

[00:11:59] Speaker 6: She's a survivor. She's a survivor, and she's a survivor where you can actually, having done this for so many years as a prosecutor, when I prosecuted domestic violence and sexual assault cases, you see a lot of women that are broken. And those women that are broken, it takes a lot of courage and a buildup of their self-confidence to be able to, number one, say that they are a victim, number two, to cooperate, and number three, to go forward with the case. And it took a lot of courage for her to do that. And throughout these four days on that stand, you saw a woman that is clearly broken, but that has built herself up with therapy and rehabilitation to be able to sit forth and testify against Sean Combs, but also built her life up. And I think where we saw it even more of what she went through is that towards the end of her questioning, when she was asked about the $20 million settlement, she would give it all back for her to be herself again.

[00:13:01] Speaker 3: Everything that Bernard has said, yes. Whenever I sit here, I am a person of two hats, I think. I think of it as a person, and I think of it as an attorney, as a person. No one's questioning whether or not Cassie's a victim. That's period, right? And I think Bernard and I have seen enough cases as a former prosecutor and a former public defender where we can probably say this is probably one of the more extreme instances of abuse that we've seen in terms of injuries, in terms of her psychology of how it impacted her, how she even talks about it now. You can still see she's working through it. As an attorney, I think the defense may try to use that statement in some way in the same way they've used her past statements, that she is talking about abuse and not trafficking. I hope they don't go there. I can see a reason why they may go there. I think Cassie has done what she needs to do in terms of testifying in this case, and hopefully she can go be a mother, a wife, a person, and no longer a victim and just move on from this.

[00:13:57] Speaker 1: All right, let's get into what happened in court today. Brian, how do you think the defense did?

[00:14:03] Speaker 6: Let's go, Brian. We were both there.

[00:14:07] Speaker 3: Bernard, I'll ask because I try to be as polite as possible. I think that the defense is struggling, and I know that a lot of reporting both on ABC and other places have talked about meandering. I do not think it is meandering. I think that people who are not attorneys interpret it as meandering, because what is happening is we saw a defense attorney who is not prepared, either not prepared because she does not have the time to be familiar with this case. I say that in the sense that we saw just how this team came together. You have to live and breathe a case like this for months, if not years, to really be able to fluidly move through the case. Or this person does not fully understand the rules of evidence to be able to ask a question in a way, to land the plane, to get that answer that you want, that is not objectionable by the judge or the government, or the answer is not objectionable. And we saw so many times getting closer and closer and closer to making the point, and then couldn't ask the question in a way that actually landed the plane and got you what you wanted, and it messed up. And that's a big thing for not only a cross-examination, but if you can't get that ammunition to make an argument across examination, you're not going to have it on summation. And so we can already see there's going to be problems in this case for the defense going

[00:15:14] Speaker 6: forward. How do you think the prosecution did? Well, the prosecution really just had to sit there and actually listen to the questions and actually object when they needed to object, and they did. And every time they objected, it threw off that defense attorney. So they did what they needed to do in order to, of course, with their direct examination, they were excellent. But again, this home court advantage when you're talking about direct examination, you know what to ask your witness because you've been prepping with your witness. But I think when they came back on redirect, they were also very strong. So when I stated before, when they started talking about asking her about the $20 million settlement, like, would you give all of that back to have not gone through this? I think they did an excellent job with redirecting and bringing the focus right back to, look, she was a victim. These freak-offs happen so often. There's no way that someone who endured having someone urinate on them, actually, that was one of the redirect questions that she wanted this. And I think strategically on one of the questions when she, when doing a redirect, she asked, well, what other job did you have? I was a sex worker. Objection sustained, but guess what? You can't unring that bell. The jury heard that. And being

[00:16:28] Speaker 1: a sex worker is part of these charges. One of the things that the prosecutor asked her, this was the question, do you have any financial stake in the outcome of this trial?

[00:16:38] Speaker 6: And she doesn't. She doesn't because her cases have settled already.

[00:16:41] Speaker 3: No alleged victim has any financial stake.

[00:16:44] Speaker 6: If they have a civil lawsuit, they do.

[00:16:46] Speaker 3: No, no. But the financial stake is in the civil lawsuit, not in the criminal case. So that's a trick question. It's a throwaway, but it's nice to talk about on TV. You're annoyed by that question. Yeah, because as a defense attorney, like, and an attorney, we all know that you have no financial stake in a criminal case.

[00:17:05] Speaker 6: During the opening, the whole opening for the defense towards the end of that opening was like, there are millions of reasons for someone to come up with these charges or to cooperate. That was pretty much half of the theme of their case, that it's all about money here. So when the prosecutor asks whether you have any financial gain and she says no, then that's deflating the balloon.

[00:17:29] Speaker 3: She has a financial gain. Yes. Not a financial gain in the criminal case. Those are two different things.

[00:17:35] Speaker 1: Okay. At the end of the day, this is all going to come down to those 12 jurors and what those 12 jurors think. They're going into the weekend. As the prosecution, what is it that you want them to be thinking about over the weekend?

[00:17:46] Speaker 6: Well, let's talk about that last witness. That last witness testified that she observed Sean Combs beat Cassie. Take, what was it, a frying pan and threw it at Cassie when he came down in a roar talking about, where are my eggs? So that's how they ended the day. That's how they ended the day where the jury has 48 hours to think about the case. So aside from Cassie having testified, sure, they tied that up with a bow, but having that extra witness and actually the witness before that talk about the pay deal and stuff like that and the drugs that they recovered and $9,000 that was recovered from Diddy's hotel room when he was arrested. When you bring it back again to the violence and how scared Cassie was, because that's what she testified that Cassie was scared, because remember, we're talking about the coercion and the control. That's a good note to end on.

[00:18:39] Speaker 1: Is that a good note to end on for the defense?

[00:18:42] Speaker 3: If you're the defense, I'm hoping that at least four or five more weekends from now, they forget about this testimony. I'm hoping if I'm the defense that by the time summation comes around, they can't really remember how poorly the cross-examination was. They can't really remember all of the violence. And I'm hoping by then we can start afresh in the summation.

[00:18:59] Speaker 1: It's always so good to have both of you. Thank you for being here with us, Brian Buckmeyer, Bernardo Villalona. Thank you both. Coming up, why so many people are searching for making the band clips of Combs and Danity Kane. Our Kelly Carter has the answer when we come back. Welcome back. Court has adjourned for the weekend in the Sean Diddy Combs trial, but people's interest in this still very active online, which brings us to our segment Searched, where we break down some of the day's biggest searches tied to the case. Today's biggest search terms include Danity Kane and Lauren London. Kelly Carter joins us now from Los Angeles. She covers entertainment and pop culture for us. So a lot of interest, Kelly, surrounding Danity Kane members, including Dawn Richard. Yeah. You know, Dawn, of course,

[00:19:57] Speaker 7: was the last person who took the stand today. She actually filed her own civil suit the end of last year, where she makes very similar allegations that we saw Cassie make in her own civil lawsuit. And of course, as we see now in the federal courts. But, you know, Dawn was a member of Danity Kane. We met her on the reality TV Making the Band that aired on MTV, where Diddy was trying to put together a super pop group. And she also was a part of his Diddy Dirty Money group as well, where they toured and did mostly like smaller club dates as opposed to the arenas that she did when she was part of Danity Kane. And we should also note that Combs

[00:20:32] Speaker 1: denies any allegations in that as well. Now, there were names that surfaced in testimony this week that was also a big search topic, including Lauren London. Yeah, you know, I'm trying to

[00:20:43] Speaker 7: figure that one out. The best that I've come up with is that she was in that 2016 movie where we here talked about a lot that premiered days after the hotel incident that we all have seen in the video. She also mentioned a couple of years ago when her longtime partner Nipsey Hussle was was gunned down that that Sean gave her some really solid advice going into that very public funeral service. Other than that, not quite sure why she's popping up in court and why people are trying to draw the you know, connect the dots with this one. And this is an interesting question that we're

[00:21:17] Speaker 1: also seeing out there. What does Cassie do now? What does she do now? Well, immediately she's

[00:21:23] Speaker 7: going to have a baby and very soon. And I think that in the aftermath of that, we probably in light of the statement that both she and her husband gave via their attorney, you know, I don't think we should expect her to be on a glossy magazine detailing kind of what her experience was like as a survivor. But we might see her act again. Just a few years ago, she actually had a pretty sizable role in a Christmas movie. It was actually called a hip hop Christmas movie, believe it or not, where she starred alongside people like MC Light and Redman and that aired on VH1. It was fun. I watched it. I liked it. And maybe we're going to see her do a little bit more acting in

[00:21:59] Speaker 1: the future. We'll have to wait and see. Kelly Carter, thank you so much. Thank you. And thank you for joining us. We'll be back with new episodes every day of The Trial. The show streams right here on ABC News Live, Disney Plus and Hulu weekdays at 5.30 p.m. Eastern. For even more on The Diddy Trial, make sure to follow our podcast, Bad Rap, The Case Against Diddy, hosted by our very own Brian Buckmeyer on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. I'm Eva Pilgrim in New York. Have a great rest of your day.