How Cassie Ventura’s Testimony Could Help Prosecution Prove Claims that Diddy’s a Sex Trafficker

In the first week of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ trial, his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura provided bombshell testimony that Combs forced her to participate in sex acts during drug-fueled parties during their on-again, off-again relationship that lasted about 11 years.

Ventura’s testimony included details of “Freak Offs,” where she alleged Combs would force her to have sex with other men, urinate on her and often videotape her sexual encounters that he later kept as “blackmail material,” she said.

Ventura told the jury that she did not want to engage in the Freak Offs and had to be on drugs to dissociate from them. She said she only participated to please Combs.

Prosecutors are hoping that Ventura’s time on the stand will help convince the New York jury that Diddy, who is charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution, is a sex trafficker who allegedly forced women to participate in the hours-long sex parties.  

“What separates sex trafficking from consensual sex between adults is force, fraud or coercion,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Neama Rahmani tells PEOPLE. 

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“Having to have sex when you’re on your period. Having sex when you have a UTI, that’s all going to be argued at closing that that’s all coercive,” Rahmani says.

Ventura also gave testimony that the hip-hop mogul controlled her life and career, including what she wore and who she spoke to.

“You heard testimony from Cassie that Combs would control every aspect of her life,” Rahmani says. “The outfits she wore, her nails, her breast implants, her piercings, everything. So that’s the coercion argument.”

Ventura also expressed her fears of crossing Combs during their relationship.

Earlier in the week, the jury was shown the infamous video of Combs chasing, beating and kicking Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel lobby in 2016. She claimed the incident took place when she was trying to leave a Freak Off session.

She also claimed he carried weapons and had employees track her down when she tried to stay away from him. 

“Force, of course, is being beaten,” says Rahmani. “He would brandish weapons. He would track her; they would find her if she was unavailable or wouldn’t respond. So those are all the elements of force, and that’s how they’re going to prove the sex trafficking.”

Former federal prosecutor Mark Chutkow tells PEOPLE that prosecutors are trying to “create an entire narrative that the totality of the circumstances of the relationship between Diddy and Ventura was one of control where she had no choice but to do what he was asking.”

“All those things collectively together paint a picture of Ventura as being unable to escape from Diddy, unable to do what she wants to do,” he says. “And the fact, at least according to the prosecution theory, that she had no choice but to do this.”

According to Rahmani, the most serious charge against Combs is sex trafficking, which is also the most difficult to prove.

“There is an argument that this was consensual,” he says. “And there’s, she did it hundreds of times, you know, willingly, voluntarily. Why didn’t she leave? She loved the lifestyle. She loved the money. I’m not saying I agree with it, but that argument can easily resonate with the jurors. You were forced to do this hundreds of times. You never left, you never told anyone, never reported it. But you filed a lawsuit instead. So, that’s only for the jury to decide.”

Ventura’s suit against Combs accused him of rape and physical abuse. Though the case was settled within a day for $20 million, it led to a slew of allegations that now form the foundation of the ongoing criminal proceedings. 

Combs is also charged with racketeering which “requires two or more people to agree to engage in a criminal enterprise,” says Chutkow.

“What the government is going to have to show is, it wasn’t simply Diddy, but he had other people that recognized they were engaged in criminal activity and agreed to do it together. What we’re going to have to watch for in this trial is who are those other co-conspirators, and did they truly understand that the behavior that they were engaged in amounted to a racketeering enterprise? Presumably they’re going to put on bodyguards and other people that will have to admit that they understood that what was happening was criminal.” 

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Chutkow believes the defense is going to seize upon the racketeering charges and “suggest that the government is overcharging this case.”

“The racketeering conspiracy is a statute that was enacted about 1970, specifically to combat organized crime, specifically the mafia,” Chutkow says. “This is a looser confederation of people. Here you’re having large lavish parties with lots of famous people coming in and out, and the defense is going to say, how is this a crime scene? Like if everybody else is around here how could he have gotten away with this and for that long? So that’s one aspect I think is that the defense is going to suggest that the charges don’t fit the crime.”

The trial, which began with opening statements on May 12, is expected to last several weeks before it concludes — at which point Rahmani thinks Combs will get convicted. 

“These cases often come down to likability and credibility, that he is not likable at all,” Rahmani says. “Paying someone to urinate in your girlfriend’s mouth is not likable. Filming her and blackmailing her, I mean, people are gonna hate him. And as far as the credibility look, video doesn’t lie. Everyone saw that video of him beating her in 2016 when she was trying to leave a Freak Off. That’s very disturbing. So I do think the government has a strong case, and I do think he’ll be convicted.”