Cassie Ventura said she fears “swift retribution” from Sean “Diddy” Combs in a blistering three-page victim impact statement submitted to a federal judge ahead of the music mogul’s sentencing, warning that if he walks free, she fears swift retaliation.
The letter, filed Monday (September 29) in U.S. District Court, accompanied a request from prosecutors urging Judge Arun Subramanian to hand Combs a minimum sentence of 11 years and three months.
Combs is set to be sentenced Friday (October 3), after being convicted of two counts of transporting individuals across state lines for prostitution.
“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,” Ventura wrote in the letter, per Rolling Stone.
Ventura’s statement recounts what she described as more than a decade of abuse, beginning when she was 19.
She testified that Combs used physical violence, threats, drugs and manipulation to control her both personally and professionally.
“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,” she wrote. “He groomed me into performing repeated sex acts with hired male sex workers during multi-day’ freak-offs,’ which occurred nearly weekly.”
She alleged she was forced to wear specific outfits and consume drugs and alcohol during these encounters “so he could control me like a puppet,” she wrote.
Ventura also described repeated physical assaults. “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,” she stated.
Combs’ legal issues escalated in November 2023 when Ventura filed a civil lawsuit accusing him of abuse.
The case drew national attention after CNN released surveillance footage showing Combs assaulting Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.
During the eight-week trial, jurors convicted Combs of transporting male escorts for sex but cleared him of racketeering and sex trafficking charges involving Ventura and another woman who testified under a pseudonym.
Ventura expressed disappointment with the jury’s decision. “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,” she wrote.
She urged the court to impose a sentence that reflects the harm she endured. “His sentence should reflect the reality of the evidence and my lived experience as a victim.”
She also pushed back against the defense’s portrayal of their relationship. “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,” she wrote.
Ventura rejected the idea that Combs has changed or is now committed to helping others. “This disgusts me,” she wrote. “He is not being truthful. I know that who he was to me—the manipulator, the aggressor, the abuser, the trafficker—is who he is as a human.”
She revealed that the trauma led to substance abuse and suicidal thoughts, crediting her family for intervening and helping her seek treatment.
Ventura’s letter arrives as prosecutors press for a sentence of at least 135 months (11 years and 3 months) along with a $500,000 fine, arguing Combs’ crimes demand accountability.
Defense attorneys, by contrast, have urged the court to impose just 14 months, citing his time already served, his reported sobriety, and claims of mentoring fellow inmates.
The decision now rests with Judge Arun Subramanian, who will weigh Ventura’s harrowing testimony against the sharply divided sentencing recommendations when Combs appears in Manhattan federal court on Friday (October 3).