Casandra “Cassie” Ventura is urging a New York federal judge to impose a lengthy prison sentence on Sean “Diddy” Combs, saying the music mogul has shown no remorse for years of abuse that left her traumatized.
Ventura, 39, was the government’s star witness in Combs’ sex trafficking and racketeering trial earlier this year. In a letter submitted to the court on Sept. 30, she described living in fear of the man she once dated and called on the judge to consider “the many lives that Sean Combs has upended with his abuse and control.”
“I still have nightmares and flashbacks on a regular, everyday basis, and continue to require psychological care to cope with my past,” Ventura wrote. She said she has relocated her family out of New York, fearing “swift retribution” if Combs is released.
Prosecutors vs. Defense on Sentencing
Prosecutors have asked U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian to sentence Combs, 55, to at least 11 years and three months in prison for prostitution-related convictions under the federal Mann Act. His defense team has countered with a request for no more than 14 months.
In July, a jury acquitted Combs of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking but convicted him on two counts of transporting women to engage in prostitution. He has been held at a federal detention center in Brooklyn since his arrest in September 2024.
Cassie’s Allegations of Abuse
In her letter, Ventura detailed years of alleged abuse, claiming Combs used “violence, threats, substances, and control over my career to trap me in over a decade of abuse.”
She said he coerced her into weekly multi-day “freak offs” with male sex workers, which she described as “degrading and disgusting.”
“These events left me with infections, illnesses, and days of physical and emotional exhaustion,” she wrote. “Sex acts became my full-time job, used as the only way to stay in his good graces.”
Ventura said she considered suicide before seeking professional treatment at her family’s urging. Despite years of therapy and rehab, she continues to struggle with trauma from the relationship.
Evidence and Civil Suit
Her letter also pointed to the now widely circulated 2016 hotel surveillance video showing Combs kicking and striking her in Los Angeles — footage prosecutors used at trial. Ventura argued that Combs only acknowledged his abuse after the video surfaced, issuing what she called “an insincere apology on the internet.”
She noted that a civil lawsuit she filed in 2023 contained allegations that Combs repeatedly denied until the footage confirmed her claims.
“I know that who he was to me — the manipulator, the aggressor, the abuser, the trafficker — is who he is as a human,” Ventura told the court. “He has no interest in changing or becoming better.”
Judge Subramanian is expected to sentence Combs later this fall.
