NEW YORK — The courtroom fell quiet as pop singer Dawn Richard took the stand, her voice steady but grim. She wasn’t there to sing. She was there to pull the curtain back on a decade of torment allegedly inflicted by hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Richard recalled a chilling night in 2009 at Combs’ Los Angeles mansion—a night she says she’ll never unsee. Combs, enraged and screaming, demanded food, then turned on his then-girlfriend Casandra Ventura. According to Richard, he struck Ventura in front of stunned onlookers, dragged her by the hair up the stairs, and disappeared into a cacophony of smashing glass and terrified screams.
The next day, Richard said, he called everyone who’d witnessed the violence into the studio—not to apologize, but to control the narrative. He handed out flowers, reminded them who held their careers in his hands, and made it clear: silence was the price of survival in his world.
Combs, now 55, is facing five felony charges—including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy—in a federal courtroom in Manhattan. Prosecutors say his reign extended far beyond music, deep into a web of coercion, control, and sexual exploitation.
Ventura, better known to fans as Cassie, had already painted a damning picture earlier in the trial: years of abuse, manipulation, and drug-fueled sex parties Combs allegedly orchestrated and called “Freak Offs.” The horror didn’t stop there. She testified that Combs raped her in 2018. His defense team tried to shake that claim by pointing to friendly text messages the two exchanged a month later. “You didn’t say he raped you in those texts?” they asked. “Right,” she replied—but later reaffirmed her account of the assault under questioning by prosecutors.
Photos shown to jurors added visual weight to the testimonies. Bags of pink powder tested positive for MDMA and ketamine. Baby oil. Lubricant. Cocaine. Prescription pills that weren’t his. Cash. All allegedly found in his hotel suite the day of his arrest last fall.
Richard’s own legal battle with Combs is still ongoing. In a separate civil suit, she accuses him of assault, groping, and creating a hostile, degrading work environment. Her appearance in court now serves a dual purpose: a witness for justice and a woman reclaiming power after years under a shadow.
Combs sat still as the evidence piled up—sometimes rubbing his forehead, sometimes whispering to his lawyers. But outside the courtroom, the world is watching.
Ventura, meanwhile, said she never wanted the $20 million settlement Combs paid her last year to make her go away. She told the jury she’d give it back in a heartbeat if it meant she could erase the trauma of those so-called “Freak Offs.”
“I came here to do the right thing,” she said. “The more I heal, the more I remember. And the more I remember, the more I will never forget.”
The trial, expected to run for weeks, is unspooling like a tragic opera—a story of fame, fear, and the high price of silence.
