Ahead of his sentencing, Cassie revealed in an emotional letter that she is “so scared” Sean “Diddy” Combs might retaliate against her if he “walks free.”
In a three-page victim impact statement submitted to a New York court on Monday, September 29, and obtained by Rolling Stone, the singer — who dated Diddy on and off from 2007 to 2018 — urged Judge Arun Subramanian to consider a sentence that reflects “the reality of the evidence and my lived experience as a victim” after she testified at his trial in May.
Diddy is due to be sentenced on Friday, October 3, on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. He was found guilty of the charges in July, however, a jury acquitted him of three further charges: two counts of sex trafficking and one count of racketeering conspiracy.
In May, a heavily pregnant Cassie, 39, alleged in her testimony that Diddy, 55, forced her to participate in “freak offs,” sexual encounters involving escorts, and claimed she endured sexual and physical abuse during her relationship with the disgraced music mogul.
“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,” Cassie wrote in her letter, per Rolling Stone. “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. He groomed me into performing repeated sex acts with hired male sex workers during multi-day ‘freak offs,’ which occurred nearly weekly.”
“I was forced into lingerie and heels, told exactly how to look, and plied with drugs and alcohol so he could control me like a puppet. These events were degrading and disgusting, leaving me with infections, illnesses, and days of physical and emotional exhaustion before he demanded it all again. Sex acts became my full-time job, used as the only way to stay in his good graces,” she continued.
Cassie alleged that Diddy “controlled every part of my livelihood and threatened to destroy my reputation by leaking sex tapes, a threat he repeated often” if she did not participate in freak offs.
“While the defense attorneys at trial suggested that my time with Combs was akin to a ‘great modern love story,’ nothing could be further from the truth,” Cassie wrote. “Nothing about this story is great, modern, or loving — this was a horrific decade of my life stained by abuse, violence, forced sex, and degradation.”
Cassie came face to face with ex-boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs during her first day of testimony in his sex trafficking trial, and Us Weekly has a look inside the courthouse. The singer, 38, was in the direct eyeline of Diddy, 55, when she took the stand on Tuesday, May 13, according to court sketches obtained by […]
Writing about the impact of Diddy’s alleged abuse, Cassie said she still suffers from “nightmares and flashbacks” that require psychological care.
Cassie said that she lives “as private and quiet as I possibly can” because “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.”
Describing Diddy as “the manipulator, the aggressor, the abuser, the trafficker” in her alleged ordeal, Cassie urged Judge Subramanian to hand him a sentence that reflects “justice and accountability,” noting that while the trial “jury did not seem to understand or believe that I engaged in freak offs because of the force and coercion the defendant used against me, I know that is the truth” and that she hopes the judge “considers the truths at hand that the jury failed to see.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Diddy’s representatives for comment.
Sean “Diddy” Combs is on trial for very serious charges, but there have still been a few moments of levity in the courtroom — particularly with regard to jury selection. As proceedings kicked off in New York City the week of Monday, May 5, Us Weekly was inside the courtroom as Judge Arun Subramanian questioned […]
Last week, Diddy’s lawyers filed a motion asking Subramanian to consider a 14-month prison sentence followed by supervised release with mandatory drug treatment, individual therapy and group therapy. They argued “the proposed sentence is the only just and fair sentence for Mr. Combs,” because guidelines for “Mr. Combs’s crimes of conviction” are usually six to 12 months.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
