On day three of testimony, Combs's ex-girlfriend -- due to give birth in weeks according to her lawyer -- testifies that the record label executive used recordings of sexual performances that he directed her in as leverage to keep her from leaving him. She said she feared her mother seeing them and the ruin of her career. In court the jury watched stills from the videos behind privacy screens.If you want to read NBC's coverage of the trial, check out our newsletter, “Diddy On Trial”: NBCNews.com/Diddy
Full Episode
This is On Trial, a special series from Dateline True Crime Weekly, bringing you daily coverage from the Sean Combs trial. I'm Andrea Canning. Today is May 14th. In this episode, we're going to be talking about some graphic details and harrowing subject matter. Sean Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.
Yesterday, the woman identified as victim number one in the federal indictment took to the witness stand to tell her story.
The bombshell court testimony is Sean Combs' former girlfriend accuses him of abusive and explicit acts. Cassie Ventura.
Today, Cassie Ventura returned for more questioning by the prosecution. NBC News correspondent Chloe Malas was in the courtroom when Cassie walked up the aisle past Combs, the man she says she once loved. Chloe joins us now from just outside of the courthouse under a tent. It is raining to tell us what came out in Cassie's testimony today and what video and images were shown to the jury as well.
Hey, Chloe. Hey, Andrea. Today, it seemed like it was a lot of the prosecution showing Cassie photos, videos, text messages, you know, really getting her to explain how this all fits in. And especially that video in the hallway of her and Sean Combs, such a centerpiece to all of this.
You know, Andrea, the prosecution is really laying out this off and on dynamic, this control that he had over her to keep her in the relationship.
So take us through how this all works. So the prosecution, are they putting things up on a screen? Are they going up to the stand and showing her these things? How are they doing it and what are they showing her?
Emily Johnson, one of the prosecutors, is saying on occasion, may I approach the witness? And she's walking up to Cassie, and she's handing her USB drives. She's handing her different disks. And this is data that they extracted from devices that she handed over to investigators. And what we're all seeing, media, public, and the jurors are text exchanges.
We saw some photos of some of the male escorts that engaged in these freak-offs that Cassie would be the one to normally hire. Why is the prosecution showing these images from the freak-offs, and how do they fit into their strategy? Because it's one thing to talk about the freak-offs, it's another thing to actually visualize it.
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