Sean “Combs” ex-girlfriend Cassie will likely be one of many first witnesses at his bombshell sex-trafficking federal trial — and will take the stand as quickly as Monday, prosecutors say.
The R&B singer, whose full identify is Cassandra Ventura, would be the feds’ third witness after testimony kicks off within the case the place the embattled hip-hop mogul is charged with orchestrating a decades-long reign of sexual terror, prosecutor Maurene Comey mentioned.
The primary two witnesses will embrace an escort, and one other minor witness who must testify Monday for logistical causes, the feds mentioned.
Friday’s reveal comes as the ultimate stage of the jury choice course of was delayed till Monday morning, Decide Arun Subramanian granting Combs’ legal professionals’ bid to push the jury choice course of again over the prosecution staff’s objections.
Combs’ legal professionals had expressed considerations that extra jurors would ask to go away the case after one of many potential panelists requested to be dismissed in a letter to the courtroom on Thursday, citing “security concerns.”
The 12 jurors and 6 alternates who make the lower will likely be sworn in Monday morning and listen to either side’s opening assertion within the hotly anticipated case, the choose mentioned.
Among the many most vital proof jurors will see on the trial is footage of Combs punching and kicking Ventura in a disturbing caught-on-camera assault at a lodge in 2016.
Prosecutors have requested Subramanian to permit Ventura, who’s pregnant, to pause her testimony for a break each 90 minutes.
Combs is being held with out bail in a Brooklyn lockup after the feds argued that he was a “danger to society,” and that he’d tried to contact witnesses within the case.
The feds say Combs compelled girls into “Freak-Offs” — drug-fueled, days-long “sexual performances” wherein the rapper and producer’s ex-girlfriends would have intercourse with male escorts whereas he watched.
The überwealthy Sean John founder generally filmed the sexual escapades to make use of as leverage to maintain the ladies compliant together with his calls for, in accordance with his indictment.
The Harlem native can also be accused of a number of assaults, together with dangling one in every of his alleged victims over an residence balcony.
The “I’ll Be Missing You” rapper has pleaded not responsible to expenses of racketeering conspiracy, intercourse trafficking, and transportation to interact in prostitution.
His legal professionals plan to argue throughout a two-month-long trial that the Freak-Offs have been a “consensual” a part of Combs’ admittedly kinky, however not felony, intercourse life.
