Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial updates: Combs' ex-assistant 'Mia' to continue testimony next week

Cassie Ventura once thought about climbing over a balcony to escape Sean Combs, her friend and former stylist Deonte Nash testified on Wednesday.

Nash testified that the Ventura escape attempt occurred after he allegedly saw Combs get violent with Ventura and threaten to release videos of her having sex during a "freak-off." Nash told the court he had pushed Ventura to catch a cab so that she could hide from Combs in a hotel.

Nash testified that Combs showed up at his house with a bodyguard and another employee “and he was like, ‘Where the f--- is she?’ He started looking all around my house. He looked in the closets. He looked in the oven. I have no idea why he looked in the oven.”

Nash testified that when Combs learned Ventura was staying in a hotel, which Nash told the court was the Le Montrose in Beverly Hills, Combs allegedly took Nash to the hotel with him and told Nash to get Ventura to come down. Nash told the court Ventura “was frightened” after he told her “that Puff was downstairs looking for her.”

Nash told the jury Ventura said “Oh no” and then “went to the balcony and said she was going to go over the balcony.”

Instead, Nash testified that he sneaked her out of a side door.

On cross-examination, the defense asserted that Combs having the final say over Cassie Ventura’s physical looks was a business decision and not an element of coercion, as prosecutors have alleged.

“It’s important for the person who ran the label that the person look good, fair to say?” defense attorney Xavier Donaldson asked Nash.

“Sometimes, yeah,” Nash told the court in response.

Former Cassie Ventura stylist Deonte Nash testified that he saw “a lot” of blood during one instance in which he alleged Sean Combs attacked his then-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura.

Nash testified that he, along with Ventura and a Combs employee whom the prosecution identified with the pseudonym “Mia” were in Ventura’s apartment helping her pack for a music festival when, Nash alleged, Combs arrived, “pulled her by the hair off the couch and hit her," referring to Ventura.

Nash told the court that an “enraged” Combs said, “Y’all got to stop f------ with me.”

According to Nash's testimony, Ventura retreated to her bedroom and Combs allegedly followed and “continued to attack Cassie,” hitting and kicking her "until her head hit the edge of the bed frame.”

Nash testified that "when he saw the blood he just panicked.”

The stylist testified that Combs then allegedly told him and "Mia," “Look what y’all made me do.”

Nash told the court that he attempted to call 911 but was told to hang up. Combs instead said that Ventura would be taken by his bodyguard, known as D-Roc, to a plastic surgeon, Nash testified.

Nash further testified that on another occasion, he was with Ventura in her apartment when Combs allegedly came in, saying that he wanted to talk to her.

“He grabbed her as they were walking up. He grabbed her by the hair and said, ‘You got to get the f--- out of my house,’” Nash testified.

Nash told the court that he tried to leave but Combs’ security guards allegedly blocked him, preventing him from leaving, and told him to “wait for Puff to come down.”

Later, when Nash and Ventura were able to leave and had driven off, Combs allegedly called and told him to pull over, Nash told the court.

“He came to the window and began to talk to Cassie,” Nash testified, telling the court that Combs told Ventura “that she f----- up. That he was going to put her sex tapes on the internet. He was going to release them on schedule," referring to the video recordings of sexual encounters known as "freak-offs."

"He was going to start by sending them to her parents’ jobs and her brother was a b---- and that Puff was the only one that protected her,” Nash testified Combs told Ventura.

Nash testified that Ventura was in tears and that he told her to let Combs release the tapes because “he’s on them, too.” Ventura allegedly responded that the tapes depicted her “having sex with the other guys” and “that she didn’t want to" release them, Nash told the court.

Nash testified that Ventura told him that she participated in the "freak-offs" because “Puff wanted her to.”

At the start of his testimony, celebrity stylist Deonte Nash saw an airbrushed image of himself that he testified, with a smile, was not a fair representation of what he looked like while he was working for Sean Combs and Cassie Ventura.

“I look amazing,” Nash told prosecutor Maureen Comey, earning a laugh from the court.

Nash testified that he was around Ventura “all the time” and allegedly heard Combs variously call her “'baby girl', 'Cass,' 'b----,' 'slut' and 'ho'” on regular occasions.

“He told her she was an outright ho,” Nash told the court. He testified he heard Combs call Ventura a b---- “quite a bit, that was his favorite.”

Nash also testified that he “quite a few times” heard Combs tell Ventura that he “would beat her a--.”

Nash further testified that he heard Combs tell Ventura “that he wouldn’t put her music out, that he would get her parents fired from their jobs, that he would put out sex tapes,” the latter referring to video recordings of "freak-off" sexual encounters addressed in previous testimony.

Federal prosecutors have alleged that Combs maintained coercive control over Ventura that caused her to engage in "freak-offs" in which she was an unwilling participant.

Nash told the jury that Combs required Nash to send to him photos of Ventura in different outfits. “He would pick which one he liked and that would be the one we went with,” Nash testified.

Nash told the court that he recalled arriving with Ventura at the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscars afterparty. “She looked bomb. Her hair was down,” Nash testified, then told the jury that Combs came over and said “I thought I told you she needs to wear her hair up.”

Nash testified Combs angrily grabbed him by his jacket and lifted him up. “I just started asking people at the party for hair pins,” Nash told the court.

Nash also testified about going to a gay club with Ventura, singer Rita Ora and others one night in 2013. The group returned to Ventura’s apartment, Nash told the court, when he said Ventura “got a call from Puff.”

According to Nash's testimony, the phone call was on speakerphone and Nash allegedly heard Combs tell Ventura “that she ought to bring her a-- to his house.”

Nash told the court that Ventura “started to panic” before Combs called back and told Nash that “we were wild and that he thought he told us not to be going out.”

Nash testified that Ventura “just packed her stuff and went to his house.”

The court is now in lunch break.

The defense sought on cross-examination to undercut the credibility of Los Angeles Fire Department arson investigator Lance Jimenez and questioned him about a single black glove found on the back seat of rapper Kid Cudi’s Porsche 911 Cabriolet. Jimenez previously testified about what he discovered during his investigation of an attempt to set the car on fire with a Molotov cocktail.

Jimenez testified that he did not send the glove for testing because he did not find it significant to his investigation.

“I believed it belonged to the owner,” Jimenez testified. “It was a driving glove, according to him,” referring to Scott Mescudi, aka Cudi.

“You thought it was significant enough that you talked to the owner about it?” defense attorney Marc Agnifilo asked.

“Yes,” Jimenez replied.

“He said it was his glove, correct?” Agnifilo asked.

“That is my recollection, yes,” Jimenez testified.

“Did you put anything in your report about this single glove?” Agnifilo questioned.

“I don’t think I did,” Jimenez testified.

On re-direct examination by the prosecution, Jimenez called the glove “irrelevant.”

The defense said that female DNA was allegedly found on the malt liquor bottle filled with gasoline that was used to make the Molotov cocktail and that was found in the vehicle, but Jimenez had already testified to prosecutors that DNA was outside of his area of expertise.

Jimenez testified on cross-examination that Cassie Ventura did not call him back when he attempted to contact her about the car fire incident and that Capricorn Clark declined to speak with him.

The cross-examination did not mention fingerprints.

Jimenez’s testimony has concluded. The next scheduled witness is Deonte Nash, a stylist and friend of Ventura's.