Madeline Halpert
Appearances
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
There's been a lot of starting and stopping today. So it began this morning. They were supposed to start yesterday, but they decided in the end to push it to today. And we started going through Mr. Combs and Cassie Ventura's relationship. So we started with the early days. There was some going back and forth in terms of time periods, but just kind of
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
establishing actually the the love in their relationship and the passion that was there they were trying to show that other side of things we've heard a lot about the abuse but today was kind of at least at the beginning was more focused on why they were together and why she fell in love with him and when they said to cassie things like you were in love with him right you were in love with him for 11 years how did she respond to those kind of questions she did not deny loving him there were these
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
positive things about a relationship. I stayed with him for, they were on and off for 11 years, but we got back together several times. There were times she pushed back, like the attorney said, you kept coming back to him. And she said, no, I wouldn't frame it like that. It wasn't coming back, but that they kept getting back together.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
So she acknowledged that there were these positive elements to their relationship too.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Yeah, so they wanted to get at their larger argument that Cassie had free will and was a willing participant in these sex acts. And so they showed us a lot of text messages today, but some of them that we saw from Cassie that she sent to Mr. Combs was, you know, I love our FOs, freak-offs, when we both want it, she said. At another point, she said, we wish we could have FOed before you left.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
So they wanted to paint this picture of her... at sometimes being interested in actually having these. And of course, you know, she tried to clarify. At one point she said those were just words at that point. But we definitely saw a different side of the, you know, her involvement in the freak-offs there than what we saw with the direct questioning.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
What did she give as an explanation? A lot of the times she just acknowledged that, yes, that's what I said. That's what I said at the time. She didn't have as much of an opportunity to kind of give the context because this is like cross-examination, yes or no questions. But there were times when she pushed back. There was at one point she was reading a long, many, many pages of texts.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
And she said to the judge, this is not what I think is relevant. We're skipping over a lot of stuff. So there she's trying to get at there's a larger context that you're missing, which is, of course, what lawyers do on both sides, right, when they're trying to show evidence and prove their point.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Yeah, today it was a conversation between the attorneys and the judge. And he was saying the expectation was that Cassie would be done with all of her testimony by the end of the week. As you said, she's very pregnant, which they don't say that. They say she's time sensitive, but we can say that's the reason why.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
And the Mr. Combs attorney, Mark Agnefillo, was saying basically we might need more time and the judge was not having that. He was saying, really, you guys should all be done with everything by lunch. And what about the prosecution?
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
We heard a lot of objections from prosecution, objections over relevance, over asking, not giving enough foundation before asking a question. I think we've heard more from prosecutors than we did during Cassie's direct testimony. A lot of A lot of and objecting to evidence, too.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
There's been a lot of conversation about whether they can bring up evidence that references Cassie's relationships with other men. And there's been back and forth between lawyers about that. So definitely a lot of objections today.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Jealousy was a huge theme of the defense attorney's arguments today. They must have repeated that remark that Cassie gave about insane jealousy several times. They argued that Cassie was insanely jealous, that Mr. Combs was insanely jealous.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
I think it was a part of their broader point that a lot of the violence in the relationship was not about Mr. Combs trying to control and abuse and coerce Cassie, but more about just these drug-induced moments of jealousy and rage.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
I think earlier in the day, she started off very calm. She's pretty soft-spoken. She was soft-spoken yesterday. And the judge even said at one point, you've got a really cooperative witness, a responsive witness. She's answered their questions very directly. There have been times where she's gotten a little bit more combative.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
I think as the defense attorney accused her over and over again of being addicted to drugs, which she's said repeatedly, there have been times when she's pushed back slightly or tried to get more context in her answers. But overall, she's been pretty contained on the stand.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
There were a lot of celebrity name drops today. We already heard about her relationship with Kid Cudi yesterday, but that was brought up again, so there was a lot of talk about that. At one point, there was a reference to Britney Spears at her 21st birthday party in Las Vegas because Mr. Combs brought her.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Also, Michael B. Jordan came up because Cassie apparently had a brief relationship with him after she broke up with Mr. Combs. So that's a relationship I think we didn't know a ton about before. So there was certainly a lot of celebrity action today in court. But none of those celebrities have been accused of anything within this trial. No, they have not.