Cassie Ventura: I still have Diddy nightmares

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0:57Diddy's ex-girlfriend and recording artist Cassie Ventura-Fine says, I still have nightmares and flashbacks on a regular, everyday basis. Hello and welcome back to Fame Under Fire from BBC Sounds with me, Anushka Matandadauti. Hip-hop mogul Sean Diddy Combs is being sentenced tomorrow. The prosecution have filed a 164-page sentencing submission report with victim impact letters. As always, if you've got questions, send them to me on social media or WhatsApp at 0330 678 1114. That's 0330 678 1114. Don't forget to subscribe and turn on your push notifications so you never miss a thing. Just a warning before we begin, this program contains sexual content and references to suicide.

1:40Now, if you're a regular listener, you'll probably know that tomorrow sentencing starts for Sean Diddy Combs in New York on prostitution related charges. Federal prosecutors want the judge to sentence him to more than 11 years in prison with a$500 ,000 fine. Last week, his defense team called for a 14-month jail term, which, with time already served, would mean he could walk free almost immediately. Joining me now from our New York office is the digital reporter, Sakshi Venkatraman. Hi, Sakshi. Hi, Nushka. Thanks for having me back. So we've got this sentencing memorandum written by the prosecution.

2:11We covered on the pod last week what the defense had to say, and they attached 65 character support letters to talk about Diddy being a good guy. We have letters from the children. We have letters from his mother. We have letters from people he's worked with. My name is Carisha Brownlee. I can only speak from my personal experience and the man I've come to know over the past four years. She then goes on to say I've also witnessed him doing real inner work. He made the choice to check himself into anger management, start therapy and commit to physical healing through therapy. That takes strength, humility and self-awareness.

2:40He didn't do it for show. He did it because he wanted to grow and to become a better person. In my personal experience, Sean is not a danger or a threat to the community. Okay, we have here from the prosecution some victim impact letters as one of them is from Cassie. Now, we haven't really heard from her since she was actually on the stand. So actually, what does she have to say in this letter? Yeah, so Cassie basically expresses that she is scared for her life, for her safety and her family's safety. The main takeaway that I got from it is that she thinks that if Diddy is promptly released, one of his first acts is going to be to send people after Cassie and the other victims that spoke about their allegations against him.

3:18She says that for this reason, she's moved her family out of New York entirely. She also paints a picture of a very different man than in the support letters we saw from the defense. She says that he's unrepentant, he hasn't changed, and she doesn't believe anything the defense says about him changing. She also gave some reflections about the trial as a whole and how the jury failed to see her truth in acquitting him on sex trafficking charges and racketeering charges. We can get more into that, I'm sure. Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. We have a reflection from her what it was like.

3:51I mean, she was extremely pregnant. She says, for four days in May, while nine months pregnant with my son, I testified in front of a packed courtroom about the most traumatic and horrifying chapter in my life. I testified from the age of 19. Sean Combs used violence, threats, substances and control over my career to trap me in over a decade of abuse. Now, the jury did not convict Diddy of sex trafficking. They did not convict him of Rico. It's that transportation for prostitution. And the sexual acts are these freak-offs. Can you just remind everybody what the freak-offs were? The main part of her testimony concerned these freak-offs were these drug-fueled, days-long sex parties where Cassie says that she was essentially coerced by Sean Combs to perform with a male escort, to have sex with escorts that she didn't know was meeting for the first time on some occasions.

4:43He would coerce her into taking drugs so that she could stay awake or that she would be more docile and compliant. And she would have to wear high heels, cover herself in baby oils and stay in certain positions for hours on end. She says these were traumatic instances, some of the most horrifying encounters of her life. And she talks about them again in depth in this letter. One of the things that the defense are saying, and we've heard from the defense, is that we heard this throughout the trial, really. It was a mutually toxic relationship. And certainly in closing statements, one of the most impactful things, I know we spoke about this a lot from Mark Igniflo's closing statement, was that the sexual appetite for these freak-offs came not just from Diddy, but also from Cassie.

5:27Cassie was a, quote, woman who enjoyed sex. And that's a large part of what we know they're going to argue. She was organizing them. She was reaching out to these guys. She was buying the outfits. She was putting herself through those beauty regimes to look how he wanted her to look for the Frukoffs. But in the letter, she says, I testified that I learned to read Sean Combs' signals, knowing that when he spoke of Frukoffs, he was demanding them. Just talk to me a little bit more about what she says about his control over her in this letter. Right. I mean, I think that what she's saying is that his control over her went so far that he didn't even need to verbally force her.

6:06She was at the point where she was preempting his needs in order to avoid abuse and doing what she thought that he wanted to do and saying what she thought he wanted to hear. And that there was no consent in this cycle of abuse, just her trying to make sure that she wasn't going to be the victim of another violent incident. And she says, during my time with Combs, I was in a constant state of hypervigilance as I was always anticipating demands for sex acts or otherwise fearing retribution for any perceived slight. So she's chipping away there at what the defense is going to present is that she was an active participant in this.

6:40She talks about that 2016 footage that we watched her get assaulted in the hallway of a hotel in 2016. she says people watched this footage dozens of times seeing my body thrown to the ground my hands over my head curled in a fetal position to shield me from the worst blows this physical violence caused bruises that makeup artists paid for by sean combs would cover up as well as permanent scars all over my body so in many ways this is a rehashing of a lot of her testimony but one of the main things that the defense have said is yes he was violent there was domestic violence in this relationship.

7:15They admitted that throughout trial. It was a heavy, heavy feature of the closing arguments. If we were here for domestic violence, he would have said he's guilty and put his hands up. They present it as something that happened in the past and something that he has worked on himself to move through. But Cassie in this letter talks about the very real world impacts that she's still having to go through. Tell me a little bit about what she says this is doing to her day-to-day life now. She talked on the stand about suicide attempts that she had had in the past because of the trauma that she says she had been through.

7:47She describes still experiencing the psychological impacts of going through this alleged abuse has on a person. So she says she's still reeling from testifying in the trial and just reeling from the cycle of alleged abuse in general. Yeah, I think this particular line is quite impactful. I'm slowly learning how to live my life free of the fear and horrors I endured. And in doing so, I'm fully devoted to my husband and my children. So it makes it a very much, this is something that's still going on rather than what we heard in, for instance, Gina's letter, which the defense included. Gina, who never took the stand, but was included as a victim in the indictments from the prosecution.

8:26She said, I believe Diddy is a good man. And this is stuff that happened in the past. We had a toxic relationship. We worked through it. You know, he's a father, he's a loving person. He's devoted to his family. In Cassie's letter, she says, I still have nightmares and flashbacks on a regular everyday day basis and continue to require psychological care to cope with my past. You mentioned that one of the most impactful moments of Cassie's testimony was when she spoke about having these flashbacks and what it drove her to do. Yeah. One of the points when the overflow room was completely silent was when Cassie was talking about being mentally tormented by flashbacks, nightmares, reminders of what she says happened to her.

9:07And she says it wasn't for her loved ones stopping her and getting her into rehab, then she doesn't know where she would be. And that was, I mean, people were crying in the room. People were crying in the elevators. She talks about coming back from a music video shoot that she wasn't at with. Sean Combs had nothing to do with Diddy having those flashbacks. Her husband, Alex Fine, has put the children to bed and she's saying, you can do this without me, and then makes an attempt on her own life. So this reflection of that in the letter, the reference to nightmares and flashbacks, for those who followed the trial closely, you would have heard something similar before, but it brings it up right up to what she's dealing with now.

9:43We also have a letter from her parents as well. What do they have to say? Her parents echo the concerns that I think a lot of concerned parents in this position would probably say, given the allegations that their daughter has made. They said that Sean Combs' actions were depraved and he should get a sentence, you know, tantamount to how depraved his actions were. Their letter was much shorter than Cassie's but very to the point. They said that, you know, their daughter was in a relationship with this man for over a decade and he tormented her. They also were very clear to say there's no consent in a domestic abuse relationship, meaning that unlike what the defense is saying, it wasn't consensual in their perspective.

10:24None of the acts were consensual. So they're also advocating for Sean Combs to receive as high a sentence as possible. One of the last things that Cassie says that I'm trying with all that I am to move on. I hope your sentencing decision reflects the strength it took for victims of Sean Combs to come forwards. Now we have statements from Cassie who we would know as victim number one. Some people refer to her as the star witness who a lot of the case was built around. We have a statement from Mia using a pseudonym who worked for Diddy for many years and who alleged a pattern of abuse, sexual abuse, coercion, coercive control and at Times violence.

10:58We have Capricorn Clark, Deontay Nash. These are some of the other letters that we have. We don't have Jane. Just remind everyone who Jane is. So Jane was one of the victims who took the stand talking about Sean Combs' violence. She actually dated him up until he was arrested in September of 2024. Jane's testimony was very interesting, most notably because Diddy is still paying for her house. She says that she receives a$10 ,000 allowance from him every month to fund the house that she lives in with her son. And she's still tied to him in a lot of ways that Cassie and the other victims are not tied to him anymore.

11:38But she alleges a lot of the same abuse. She says that she was coerced into performing freak offs with male escorts who she didn't know. Ultimately, she just wanted to spend time with Diddy and wanted to be with her lover, as she put it. But she says that anytime he wanted to see her, it was in the context of having a freak off, which lasted days in various cities. Yeah, we don't have a letter from Jane, but she's heavily referenced in the rest of the sentencing memorandum. Talks about her being violated, some of her notes that she kept about not wanting to do the freak off. So her testimony is still in there.

12:12Now, we are going to be doing an update when we get a result on how long he's going to be sentenced for. Reminder, the defense want essentially time served, 14 months, and the prosecution are asking for 11 years. Sakshi, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to see you again. That was the BBC's New York digital reporter, Sakshi Venkatraman. Joining me now is our resident trial attorney, Sean Kent. Hi, Sean. Hey, Anushka.

12:37Cassie Ventura:How's everybody doing? So if you guys remember back when we gave you the verdict of the Diddy trial two months in New York, convicted of two counts of transportation for prostitution by the federal government, Not RICO, not sex trafficking, which were the two big ones. Now, prosecution came straight out. We're looking for 20 years. We know, we told you last time what the defense are asking for. Essentially, time served, 14 months. He would have been in there over a year by the time we get to that October 3rd sentencing date. Now, the prosecution are saying 11 years. Sean, what's your reaction to that?

13:07The prosecution, just because they're asking for a certain number, doesn't mean they're going to get it. The defense asking for a certain number doesn't mean they're going to get it. As I've talked to you about, there's something called a PSR that's been happening this entire time. That's the pre-sentence report that's being done by probation. And supposedly that pre-sentence report, I would assume, has already been sent to the prosecution in the defense. Usually the prosecution's number is in line with what the probation department is asking for. So the question is, did the probation department also agree that these enhancements are necessary?

13:40and the prosecution is pretending they're bringing something out of the air, but they might know that that's the number on the pre-sentence report. When we spoke about the PSL before, you talked about certain things that they take into account. So no previous criminal record, for instance, which automatically lowers the amount of time, which he doesn't have a previous criminal record, lowers the amount of time he could spend behind bars. Now, you just mentioned there's something called enhancements. Can you explain what that is? Anybody who has ever gone to a nail salon and just get your nails done and all of a sudden they're just like, do you want gel coat?

14:09Do you want this? Do you want those? You know, you go in there for your base price on your nails, but if you get gel coat, everything costs a little bit more money. It's the same thing in the federal system. You go in there with your base charge and the federal government, the probation department has decided to sprinkle some enhancements on it based upon other things that they think he has done. And every enhancement adds more time to your potential sentence. What we do in the federal system is it's not just the crime that you have committed. It is your conduct and the way that you have behaved that should determine how much time you're actually getting.

14:48And so an enhancement can be your role, meaning you're the type of individual who beat somebody up, but you're also the leader of the organization that caused someone to be beaten up. Maybe beating up somebody carries four years, but because you're the leader of this organization, you get an additional two years. We're trying to get you more, and that's enhancement because you're not just somebody who's a mere participant. You're a leader. Maybe there's other victims based upon the awful, abhorrent stuff that you have done. We're going to add to more levels. So you see what's happening in this case.

15:20Every time the government or the probation department can look at your case and say, judge, we understand that his base is only carrying this amount of time, But because of all of the awful stuff he has done, the statute, the sentencing guidelines allows us to enhance his sentence. And that's how we get to the 11 years. If we remember what the defense was saying, he's a user of prostitutes, not a pimp, not an organizer. He's what's called a john. And it's unprecedented to go after a user of prostitutes like this.

15:51Cassie Ventura:Typically, there's an unwritten rule that you go after the person running the show, not the person buying the goods, for lack of a better phrase. But if you want to understand succinctly what the prosecution are basically saying, it says the defendant is not a, quote, John, who casually consumed commercial sex, rather as discussed above his conduct, including exploiting and controlling women through tactics, including manipulation, threats, fear, controlled substances and physical violence more closely resembles that of a pimp. So that, I think, down to a T is their argument. And it's very, very long.

16:26Cassie Ventura:And the word violent and violence comes up 274 times. So there is a heavy focus on the violence in the relationship with Cassie and Jane and Mia, which they owned up to consistently throughout the trial. And people saying that at the end, it's kind of bitten them in the backside when it came around. Absolutely. Like the same way that I said I thought the defense's motion was very good. I think the prosecution is good because they basically took the language from the defense and are using it against Diddy now and just saying all the stuff you admitted to to get acquitted, we are now using against you as relevant conduct to show the character of who you are.

17:01You are a violent person. You've admitted to abusing people. You have admitted to all of these situations. And for that reason, we're going to try to get you much more time.

17:09Cassie Ventura:And guys, we are going to have a bonus episode when we find out how long he is going to be spending behind bars or if indeed he's going to walk straight out that courtroom. We will be here with it first and let you know just as we were throughout the entire trial.

17:45the season. Shop Summer Fruit Fest at Whole Foods Market. What do Beatles member Sir Paul McCartney, YouTube megastar MrBeast, and former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg all have in common? They're all being discussed in the new season of Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast which explores the lives and fortunes of the world's super rich. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now and search for Good Bad Billionaire wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

18:14Now it's an episode of Last Minute Updates because next we're bringing you news about a letter we've just received from Candice Owens' husband. But before I get into the letter, here's a little mini outline of where we're at so far with the Macrons versus Candice Owens case. The French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte are suing right-wing influencer and podcaster Candice Owens for defamation. Candice Owens has been posting videos claiming Brigitte Macron was born a man and is actually her brother. The Macrons categorically deny the claims, calling them outlandish, defamatory and far-fetched fictions.

18:44And on this podcast, we exclusively broke the news that the French president and his wife will and are resolved to prove in court that Brigitte is female. Since then, Candice Owens responded. And in our latest episode, we fact check some of those claims. Go and check it out if you haven't. Now, today we have received a letter. It's addressed to the U.S. National Security Division for the attention of the FARA unit chief. and it's from Candace's husband, the British-American businessman, George Farmer. The letter claims the Macrons are breaking federal law by hiring investigators, publicists and others to work on his behalf in the United States without registering under Farrah.

19:20Farrah, Farrah, I'll go with Farrah. I think that's what it is. Farrah is the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Sean Kent, our resident trial attorney, is back with me to quickly run through this allegation.

19:30Cassie Ventura:Okay, so my understanding of that then is if you are a foreign agent, say Keir Starmer wanted to pitch up in the US and do some stuff that involved his reputation, business, anything like that, he would have to register who was working for him there and helping him do so inside the territory of the United States of America? This thing passed in 1938. So you know what's going on in the world. People are suspicious on what's going on in other countries. And if we're trying to get some political devices, if people are trying to come over to the United States to try to influence politics, influence what's going on.

20:05So that's why it was created. It's basically a knowledge requirement. We want to make sure you're not trying to come over here and influence what's going on in America without telling us your purpose. Let us know. Show yourself. Show us what you're doing in America. Don't just come over here and pretend you're doing something without telling us who you're actually working for. Okay. So look, let's go to what it says in the letter. It says President Macron is indeed entitled to challenge his critics. He is even entitled to file defamation lawsuits against American journalists for asking uncomfortable questions pertaining to the person identifying as his wife.

20:41But Mr. Macron may not violate federal law in the process. Now, it goes on to say that since at least January of 2025, the sitting president of France has waged an influence campaign against Ms. Owens in the United States aimed at damaging Ms. Owens' reputation and deterring her from reporting.

20:56Cassie Ventura:And it goes on to to say this bit, but in bold, it is readily understood by everyone that sitting presidents of foreign nations are foreign principles. Sean, what does that mean? And how does that impact what the FARA law applies to? Well, and that's what they're saying, that the French president is trying to influence what the people of the United States think of him. He is a foreign principal, so he would be covered under FARA, F-A-R-A. Now, why does he have investigators doing anything in the United States? And why aren't these investigators registered and why aren't these investigators telling the United States people why they're here investigating?

21:33That's what they're saying. So they have a point, but I don't understand where we're going with this. But the letter highlights, it goes on to say, quote, it is a felony to willfully violate FARA. Civil fines can be as high as$250 ,000 and failure to register when required to do so is punishable by up to five years imprisonment and hefty fines.