May 15, 2025
Cassie Ventura’s answers to questions from both the prosecution and defense are setting up the more fleshed out arguments lawyers will make over the next several weeks of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ criminal trial, a trial consultant told CNN.
First, the testimony will be bolstered by expert witnesses for each side, Richard Gabriel said.
The prosecution will bring experts who likely argue that, “psychologically, this does meet the threshold for coercion and sort of her being under the thumb of Sean Combs,” Gabriel told CNN. Meantime, the defense’s experts will likely say it does not, and argue her “independence and her ability to leave” the relationship.
Secondly, the lawyers will take what Ventura says on the stand and argue the actual legal statutes. They will need to explain to the jury how her testimony does — or doesn’t — meet the legal definition of what Combs is accused of, Gabriel said.
Jurors “fundamentally have to get their own gut feeling as to whether there’s real participation on her part,” he said.
This sentiment was underscored during a conversation between the lawyers and the judge earlier today about how much longer Ventura would be on the stand. Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo stressed to the judge that the defense believes Ventura is the most important witness in the case.
