Cassie Ventura Said Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Has ‘No Interest in Changing’ in Harrowing Letter to Judge
As Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sentencing date nears, his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, wrote a victim impact statement to Judge Arun Subramanian. In it, she alleged that Combs abused her throughout their relationship and asked him to take that into consideration in his sentence. Though Combs’ defense team has insisted that he is a changed man, Ventura said she does not think this is the case.
Cassie Ventura believes Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs will not change
Ventura was the prosecution’s star witness during Combs’ trial. She spent four days testifying while she was nine months pregnant. Since then, she wrote that she has tried to keep her life as private as possible, as she fears retribution from Combs when he gets out of prison. While he initially faced the possibility of life in prison, the jury’s verdict eliminated that possibility.
“As much progress as I have made in recovering from his abuse, I remain very much afraid of what he is capable of and the malice he undoubtedly harbors towards me for having the bravery to tell the truth,” she wrote in her letter to the judge (via Rolling Stone).
Combs’ lawyers have called him a changed man who wants to counsel domestic abusers. Ventura does not believe this claim.
“This disgusts me,” she wrote. “He is not being truthful. 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.”
Combs’ sentencing will take place on Oct. 3.
Cassie Ventura alleged that Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was violent during their relationship
In her victim impact statement, Ventura also detailed the abuse she said she experienced in her relationship with Combs.
“I testified that from age nineteen, Sean Combs used violence, threats, substances, and control over my career to trap me in over a decade of abuse,” she wrote. “He groomed me into performing repeated sex acts with hired male sex workers during multi-day ‘freak-offs,’ which occurred nearly weekly.”
She added that sex acts became the “only way” to stay on Combs’ good side. She worried about what he might do if she refused.
“Refusing meant punishment — losing my car, my phone, or worse. He controlled every part of my livelihood and threatened to destroy my reputation by leaking sex tapes, a threat he repeated often,” she wrote. “When he believed I had wronged him or was not sufficiently responsive, he also threatened people around me and those close to me, including my family. I regularly worried that displeasing him meant putting my family and friends’ safety at risk.”
She added that she still deals with “nightmares and flashbacks” related to her relationship. While she does not think the jury reached a fair verdict, she hopes Subramanian “considers the truths at hand that the jury failed to see” in his sentence.
The prosecution is pushing for Combs to spend over a decade in prison
The maximum sentence Combs faces is 20 years behind bars. As he is a first-time offender, though, many don’t expect him to spend longer than a few years. While the prosecution initially indicated that he should spend 5 years in prison, they are now pushing for over 11 years.
“His crimes of conviction are serious and have warranted sentences over 10 years in multiple cases for defendants who, like Sean Combs, engaged in violence and put others in fear,” the prosecutors wrote in a memo, per the Guardian. “A substantial term of imprisonment is also needed in this case because the defendant is unrepentant.”
How to get help: In the U.S., call the RAINN National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 to connect with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.
