New York (AFP) – A former assistant of Sean Combs testified Tuesday that the music mogul often threatened and once kidnapped her in a jealous rage related to his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura. The assistant, Capricorn Clark, was speaking to jurors on the stand in the federal trial of the once-famed rapper, producer, and entrepreneur widely known as “Diddy,” who faces racketeering and sex trafficking charges that could put him in prison for life.
Clark said he arrived at her door early one morning in December 2011, having learned that Ventura was seeing the rapper Kid Cudi. Combs had a gun and demanded Clark get dressed and come with him. “We’re going to kill” Kid Cudi — whose real name is Scott Mescudi — she recalled Combs saying, referring to the rapper who testified last week in the high-profile criminal proceedings in Manhattan. The alleged incident is core to government prosecutors’ case that Combs, once one of the music industry’s most powerful figures, was the kingpin of a criminal conspiracy ring that wielded its power including with arson, kidnapping, and bribery. Clark’s version of events corroborated accounts from Mescudi and Ventura.
Shortly after the chaotic series of events in December, in January 2012 Mescudi testified that his car was set aflame — an act Ventura said Combs had threatened.
Clark is the highest-profile employee thus far to testify in the trial against her former boss. She described rising through the ranks in Combs’s business empire, working as his personal assistant before assuming top roles at his fashion brand, Sean John. Clark repeatedly shed tears on the stand, describing having herself received death threats from Combs, including when he insisted she help him evade police investigation over the incident connected to Mescudi.
She described a moment early in her career when she says she underwent a harrowing five-day long lie detector test after Combs suspected she had stolen diamond jewelry. The defense sought to poke holes in her chronology of events as well as her credibility as an employee who continued to go back to work for Combs despite having experienced what she described as disturbing labor abuse.
Clark said that aside from one year when she worked at Jive Records before returning to work for Combs, she found it impossible to find employment elsewhere. She said he made clear “that I would never work again,” Clark said. “That he would make me kill myself.” Clark said her work for Combs was complicated: at times it was an inspiring “form of business school,” but was undergirded by threats and fear.
She described witnessing Combs beat and kick Ventura amid the Mescudi love triangle. “Each kick she would crouch more and more into the fetal position,” Clark said. Earlier in the trial, Ventura gave hours of testimony about incidents of alleged abuse. She alleged Combs flew into a violent rage after he learned of her romance with Mescudi, lunging at her with a wine corkscrew. He allegedly threatened to make public sexually explicit footage of her, after she says he coerced her into filmed “freak-off” sex marathons with male prostitutes for years.
Jurors were shown a message from Ventura to Clark in which the former described that threat. But some of the messaging was mixed: Clark at points appeared critical of Ventura’s skills, talent, and work ethic. She also sobbed as she said Ventura played a role in her firing, “wanting her gone” in the love triangle’s aftermath — but then, she said Ventura was partially responsible for getting Clark a new job years later.
The government next plans to call a police officer and arson investigator, both from Los Angeles. Stylist Deonte Nash and an alleged victim who was also one of Combs’s former employees are also expected. Now in its third week of testimony, the trial is expected to last well into the summer.
© 2024 AFP
