Key Takeaways

• Cassie Ventura’s letter highlights her experiences of abuse by Sean “Diddy” Combs.
• Legal context: Ventura’s statement supports prosecutors’ request for a lengthy prison sentence for Combs.
• Emotional impact: The letter reveals the lasting trauma and fear Ventura continues to face.
• Call for justice: Ventura urges the judge to consider the truths overlooked by the jury.

Cassie Ventura has filed a letter in federal court days before a judge is set to sentence on Sean “Diddy” Combs, warning that the mogul subjected her to “horrific” abuse and that she fears “swift retribution” when he’s released.

Ventura – Diddy’s longtime girlfriend whose allegations of sexual abuse formed the core of the criminal case against him – filed the statement to support arguments filed by prosecutors on Monday that Combs deserves 11 years in prison when he’s sentenced later this week.

Following a blockbuster trial this spring featuring days of vivid testimony from Ventura, a jury issued a split verdict that acquitted Combs of the most serious sex trafficking and racketeering charges, but still convicted him on lesser counts of interstate prostitution. As a result of that verdict, his lawyers want him released almost immediately.

In her letter to Judge Arun Subramanian, Ventura pleaded with the judge for “justice and accountability” – and said that she hopes “your decision considers the truths at hand that the jury failed to see.”

“For over a decade, Sean Combs made me feel powerless and unimportant, but my experience was real, horrific, and deserves to be considered,” Ventura wrote in the letter. “While the 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 his sentence should reflect the reality of the evidence and my lived experience as a victim.”

Read Cassie’s entire letter to the judge below:

Dear Judge Subramanian,

I have been in a cycle of thought and then over thought writing this letter to you. If there is one thing I have learned from this experience, it is that victims and survivors will never be safe. Although I can hope for justice and accountability, I have come to not trust anything. I hope that your decision considers the truths at hand that the jury failed to see.

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 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.

I testified that I learned to read Sean Combs’s signals, knowing that when he spoke of “freak-offs,” he was demanding them, and that 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. His power over me eroded my independence and sense of self until I felt I had no choice but to submit. 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.

I testified how beyond these threats, Sean Combs frequently used violence to get his way. Over the nearly eleven years we were together, Sean Combs would hit me, punch me, stomp on my face, pull my hair, and throw my body to the ground and against the wall. The jury saw pictures of bruises on my back from Combs kicking me and saw the deep gash over my eye he caused when he slammed me into a bed frame. The entire courtroom watched actual footage of Combs kicking and beating me as I tried to run away from a freak off in 2016. People watched this footage dozens of times, seeing my body thrown to the ground, my hands over my head, curled into 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.

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. My descent into substance abuse was directly correlated with his increased control over my body, my money, my freedom, and my free will. I used those drugs to push through the horrifying sex acts he demanded and to numb myself to the physical pain and emotional turmoil I was constantly in. 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. 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.

I spent the last seven years of my life slowly rebuilding myself—physically getting clean from the drug abuse Sean Combs forced and encouraged—and mentally understanding how to live with a seemingly insurmountable level of trauma. The horrors I endured drove me to have thoughts of suicide—ones I almost followed through on if not for my family’s intervention and urging that I seek professional care. I have been to rehab and have taken part in dozens of types of therapy modalities to confront, compartmentalize, and cope with the horrific memories of sexual and emotional abuse I endured for nearly ten years. While what he did to me is always present, I am slowly learning how to live my life free of the fear and horrors I endured; in doing so am fully devoted to my husband and children.

I still have nightmares and flashbacks on a regular basis and continue to require psychological care to cope with my past. My worries that Sean Combs or his associates will come after me and my family is my reality. I have in fact moved my family out of the New York area and am keeping 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. 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.

His defense attorneys claim he is a changed man who wants to mentor abusers. I know firsthand what real mentorship means; this disgusts me—he is not being truthful. I know that who he was to me—the manipulator, aggressor, abuser—this 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. When I came out with my allegations in my civil case he flatly denied them again and again. It was only after actual video footage corroborated what was stated in my civil complaint that he issued an insincere apology on social media. Thanks to this footage along with my testimony this is something he will forever be associated with.

For over a decade Sean Combs made me feel powerless and unimportant but my experience was real horrific deserves consideration. While jury did not seem understand believe engaged freak offs because force coercion defendant used against me know truth sentence should reflect reality evidence lived experience victim reliving detail events truths described throughout trial letter causes tremendous emotional pain trying all am move hope sentencing decision reflects strength took victims Sean Combs come forward hope decision considers many lives Sean Combs has upended abuse control.

I thank you for your time and attention.

Casandra Ventura Fine