On the first day of Cassie Ventura’s cross-examination, she claimed that Diddy told drug dealers to stop selling to her.
Complex’s Shawn Setaro reports that this incident happened in 2016. On Thursday, Cassie told Diddy’s attorney, Anna Estevao, that his attempts “didn’t really work.”
According to trial transcripts shared by Inner City Press reporter Matthew Russell Lee, Estevao asked Ventura, “Did he tell LA dealers not to deal to you?”, to which Cassie responded, “Yes.”
The line of questioning came up when Estevao asked why Diddy was upset over Cassie’s drug use at the time. Diddy wasn’t so much concerned for her well-being as he was bothered that she was using without him, Cassie said.
Ventura claimed that at the time, the pair would call themselves the “Get High Partners,” and they took drugs together at Diddy’s “freak-offs.” Cassie said he would become “explosive” when she took anything without him.
The question of rehab came up at one point, too, and the singer was asked if they both went to a facility for their drug use. “Rehab wasn’t really a thing during our relationship,” Ventura replied.
Later, Ventura revealed that she tried “to get help” after she “lost all sense of smell and taste and woke up in a hospital with an IV in my arm.” Subsequent questioning reveals how Diddy allegedly abused her when he discovered she used without him, and also that he overdosed in 2012 at the Playboy Mansion, which Complex previously reported on Thursday.
Ventura said Diddy had taken a “very strong opiate” after they had patronized a sex club in San Bernardino. To stave off addiction, the pair took Ibogaine, which is said to “alleviate symptoms of withdrawal and curb cravings,” per Healthline. They went to Mexico to buy it, “separately,” Cassie noted, because the substance is illegal in the US.
Cassie spoke about Diddy’s overdose earlier in the cross-examination: “That evening we had a ‘freak-off.’ We went to a sex club in San Bernardino. And then he had a party at the Playboy Mansion that night, and I went home…”
“From what [Diddy] told me, he took a really strong opioid that night, but we didn’t know what happened,” Cassie continued. “So, we took him to the hospital.”
When asked if she and the defendant were dependent on painkillers “during the entire duration of [their] relationship,” Ventura said, “Very much so.”
Diddy has been charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. The Bad Boy Records founder, who was first arrested in New York last September, has denied the allegations. He faces life in prison if convicted.
