After a seven-week high-profile trial that captivated the public with graphic and emotional testimony, a jury found Sean “Diddy” Combs guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution in July. Now, with his sentencing scheduled for October 3, legal teams on both sides of the case are making their final appeals to the judge.
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Although the convicted music mogul’s defense team is asking for a 14-month sentence that would include credit for time served, prosecutors, who say Diddy is “unrepentant,” are making the case for an 11-year, 3-month sentence. And their hoping a letter from one of their star witnesses who says that after years of abuse, she still lives in fear helps their case.
Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura testified that Combs forced her to endure years of abuse, including forcing her to engage in sexual acts with others. She wrote a three-page letter in which she describes her relationship with Combs as a “horrific decade of my life stained by abuse, violence, forced sex and degradation.” She added that if Diddy goes free, she believes he will come after her for what she said in court.
“I am so scared that if he walks free, his first actions will be swift retribution towards me and others who spoke up about his abuse at trial,” she wrote.
Ventura reminded the judge in her letter of the now-viral video of Combs attacking her in a hotel hallway that was shown in court as proof of the kind of violence she endured during their turbulent relationship.
“The entire courtroom watched actual footage of Combs kicking and beating me as I tried to run away from a freak-off in 2016. People watched this footage dozens of times, seeing my body thrown to the ground, my hands over my head, curled into a fetal position to shield me from the worst blows,” she wrote.
In one of the most powerful parts of her letter, Ventura makes the case for why Combs should spend more time in prison, suggesting that he is incapable of change.
“I know that who he was to me—the manipulator, the aggressor, the abuser, the trafficker—is who he is as a human. He has no interest in changing or becoming better. He will always be the same cruel, power-hungry, manipulative man that he is,” she wrote.
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