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Front Burner Transcript for May 22, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

JAYME POISSON: Hi everyone, I'm Jayme Poisson. And just a note before we get started here, this episode contains explicit descriptions of domestic and sexual violence and graphic sexual acts. Please do take care while listening.

[Music: Theme]

JP: It was a year and a half ago that R&B singer Cassie Ventura accused Sean "Diddy" Combs -- the producer and music mogul who has been one of the biggest names in hip-hop for decades -- of rape and repeated physical abuse over their decade-long, on-and-off relationship. Diddy settled with Cassie just a day after she filed a lawsuit against him for $20 million. But her initial allegations unleashed a torrent of other accusations, including more than 70 sexual assault lawsuits and federal raids of Diddy's home. Some accusers have alleged that they were subjected to abuse in order to engage in drug-fuelled sex parties known as freak-offs. Some also claim that they were drugged and then sexually assaulted. Now, Diddy is on trial in a Manhattan federal court on charges of sex trafficking of three women, racketeering conspiracy, and transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted, he could be behind bars for life. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Today I'm speaking with Nada Tawfik. She's a reporter with BBC North America, and she has been inside the courtroom covering this trial.

[Music: Theme]

JP: Hey, Nada. Thanks so much for coming onto the show.

NADA TAWFIK: Absolutely. Happy to do it.

JP: I want to start outside the courthouse, which is actually where you are right now, right? Because the level of media and public attention around this trial, as you might expect, is exceptional. And can you just describe what it's like, what's happening outside the courthouse?

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah, right now it's actually pouring rain, um, and we've seen that kind of throughout a few of the other court days. But on either side of me, I'm sitting right across from the court, and there are cameras, the world's media lined up, because of course, there is a heavy press interest in this case. But what's been a little bit different is every time I come out of the courthouse during breaks, there are lines of influencers also covering this to kind of give their hot take on the latest bit of testimony or evidence that's come through. And in addition to that, you know, there are many people who kind of make their presence quite known. Whether that's people wearing 'Free Diddy' T-shirts and some of his supporters. You know, while I've been out here over the past week and a half, there have been people driving by in their cars, playing his music, people playing his music on their phone and yelling out "Free Diddy!" One even came behind me during a live, yelling out, "Free Diddy!" And inside the overflow rooms as well, where we watch court proceedings on a monitor, members of the public are able to go in there. And many are not used to kind of the court decorum, you know, not reacting to every bit of testimony. And so some have, you know, shouted out or gasped or made comments, and court officers have had to actually approach a few people to warn them not to do that. And a few who have gotten rowdy have also been escorted out. So a lot of interest in this case and attracting a lot of different types of people.

JP: Have you had the opportunity to talk with any of Diddy's supporters? What have they said, if you have?

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah. Look, the ones that come here say that they're here to show their support because they feel that this is not a sex trafficking, racketeering case. They really do buy into the defence's position that he is just being vilified unfairly. And these are people who grew up listening to his music and don't want to see the downfall of someone that they view as a visionary who really helped put hip-hop into the mainstream. And they are not budging from that viewpoint.

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JP: So let's talk about what we've heard inside the court now. Last week, Cassie was on the witness stand for four days. And the additional witnesses the prosecution has called forward so far have mainly described Cassie's relationship with Diddy -- the violent and allegedly coercive nature of it. There have been a lot of descriptions of domestic abuse and very graphic sexual details. Now, something the defence has been very clear about is that they are not denying that Diddy was violent towards Cassie. But as they noted, this is not a domestic abuse trial. Diddy is charged with sex trafficking of three women, of, as I mentioned, transportation to engage in prostitution, and racketeering conspiracy under the RICO Act. This is a statute that was originally created to take on mob bosses, right? And so just explain to me how the prosecution is trying to build this case; that the details a jury is hearing are not just describing domestic violence, right, but sex trafficking and racketeering.

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah, that's right. And, you know, I think we have to remind people that sex trafficking, they might have in their minds, you know, images of what they've seen in Hollywood or what they've heard of in real life. So let's just break down what the prosecution needs to prove for sex trafficking first. They have to prove that sex was obtained through force, fraud, or coercion. And so we heard a lot from prosecutors in the opening statements that, you know, she was threatened, Cassie, and this other woman named Jane. They were drugged, they were lied to. That violence was used to essentially control them along with other means such as blackmail. And so for that, that kind of covers the sex trafficking allegation. When the jury is informed on the law later, they're gonna have to see, have prosecutors proven those things happened -- the force, fraud or coercion. When you get to the RICO and racketeering side of things, which you're absolutely right, started off with Mafia cases, but we have seen it used in sex abuse related cases like R. Kelly, for example.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER: Kelly convicted on eight counts of sex trafficking and one count of racketeering charges ... for leading what prosecutors allege was a criminal enterprise consisting of himself and an entourage of individuals as the leader of the enterprise. Kelly used his fame to recruit women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity.

NADA TAWFIK: And there, the government just really needs to show that there were other people who helped facilitate Diddy's crimes and cover up those crimes. And it doesn't matter if these were friends of the alleged victims. It just means that these people helped Diddy if there was a crime. [JP: Right.] And then on the transport to engage in prostitution, they need to really simply just show that an escort came in from another state and was paid for sex by Diddy. And so that's why we've seen, for example, exports coming on the stand and testifying to that point, but then also giving additional testimony, um, about what they experienced and what they saw themselves in those freak-offs.

JP: Right. And so much of this centres on the freak-offs, right? These drug-fuelled sex parties that Diddy called freak-offs. And just, can you just explain what they were a little more and some of the things that allegedly happened in them?

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah, so we got a lot of detail from Cassie and the escorts. Um, two of them so far who have testified, um, and how they describe these freak-offs. And just to say that this isn't disputed that these freak-offs took place, right? The defence says it was just part of a swinger lifestyle. So they admit these freak-offs took place. Cassie describes how, um, she -- it was almost like her job. It was expected of her to set up the freak-offs herself. So she had to, um, find a location for them. Um, in -- working with Diddy to find whether it would be a hotel room. Sometimes she would book them, sometimes he would book them. Sometimes they were even at his homes or her homes. And she said she was instructed to dress a certain way. She had to have her nails painted white. She would be told what kind of lingerie to wear, the heels to wear. Whether to wear a mask or a wig. And she said there had to be certain lighting, they had baby oil and lubricant at these freak-offs. And she would then reach out and actually book the escorts herself a lot of the time. Again, she said she was instructed to do that.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER 2: He fed her cocaine and ecstasy, and she felt forced to participate in them with male escorts. Asked how she felt after the first one, quote, "I was high, so there wasn't much feeling. A mixture of dirty and confusion..."

NADA TAWFIK: And in these freak-offs, she said Diddy would then direct all of the sexual acts throughout, and kind of tell her what performance to do, what character to take on. And what we heard from the escorts was something very similar -- that Diddy was in a corner, watching all of this unfold, sometimes recording it. And that he would give them instructions. And Cassie went into some pretty graphic details, um, about some of the things she was asked to do, and kind of made the point that nobody would have wanted to do that, and how she felt just disgusted sometimes, she felt worthless sometimes by all of this. And how she originally did it to please Diddy early on in the relationship because she loved him and didn't want to disappoint him, but that later it felt-- it was very much expected. And at times she said it felt like a full-time job. She was... Every week, she said sometimes between the recovery and the freak-offs, they could last for days.

JP: I mean, there are some really, really disturbing details here. For example, Cassie testified that at one point she was literally like choking, right? Because um, there was someone who was urinating basically in her mouth, and she couldn't breathe, right?

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah, that's right. And, you know, she tried to really get the jury to understand what the toll of these freak-offs were, really. You know, she spoke about how, for example, she would take drugs, and um, try to get into this kind of what she called a ketamine hole, where she could disassociate from the freak-offs. But she said it took such a toll on her body that she would have to be on IVs for days. She got sores in her mouth. She spoke about getting a urinary tract infection and UTIs and being expected, even on her period and with UTIs, to have these sexual performances. So she just talked about, again, how this all made her feel worthless and what a toll this took on her body.

JP: Yeah. Some really, um, really difficult details to listen to coming out of this trial.

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JP: In the opening statements, the prosecution also talked about another woman referred to as Jane, right? Who we still don't know much about. But she's also alleged to have been forced to participate in these drug-fuelled sex parties, am I correct?

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah, that's correct. This is a woman who, at the moment, it seems she's gonna be-- remain anonymous. Her name, she's being referred to as Jane. She was a single mother. Um, she was somebody who wasn't kind of publicly out there in the way Cassie was. Remember, Cassie and Diddy had an over 10-year relationship. They were photographed on the carpet of the Met Gala together. She was one of his signed artists. So this was a very public relationship. Jane, it seems like it's very different, so it will be very interesting to see her get up on the stand and speak to what her experience was. But prosecutors in their opening said the same -- that Diddy tried to control Jane through, you know, having control of kind of her house payments, um, and other ways of getting control of her, and that these were very much freak-offs that she felt forced to do and did not want to participate in either.

JP: The jury has heard some very violent allegations and evidence about Diddy's relationship with Cassie. Probably the most infamous piece of evidence that many people who have followed the trial are likely familiar with is a CCTV video of a 2016 incident in a hotel hallway. And just briefly, what do we see in that video and what does the prosecution say that it shows?

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah, it didn't take long at all for prosecutors to play this video. In fact, the first witness was a security guard who was there, so that they could enter this video right into evidence and show it to the jury. And prosecutors say it shows her leaving a freak-off because she had a premiere for a movie she had acted in. She had said, you know, she didn't want to-- Cassie didn't want to do this freak-off, um, but she felt she had to 'cause he kept pushing it. And they say the video shows her leaving, and then him attacking her because of that. He's just in a towel, kind of coming out of his hotel room. And Cassie says that once he pushed her to the ground, that she stayed down because she didn't want him to do any more damage than he had already done, because essentially, again, she had that premiere.

JP: What have the defence, uh, or Diddy said was happening in that video?

NADA TAWFIK: Essentially, what the defence has said is, you know, they admit to the violence, they admit that he had his demons. But they say this video shows him actually running after Cassie because Cassie took his phone, and that's all he wanted was to get his phone back.

[music]

JP: As you mentioned, coercion has been a massive theme throughout this trial. So I want to break down some more of the allegations of coercion that we heard from her and others. And let's start with the, um, allegations of violence against Cassie that the court heard from her and other supporting witnesses, and how the prosecution has been trying to show that those demonstrate coercion.

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah, you know, we saw in court -- and keep in mind, Cassie is, you know, eight months pregnant on the stand. And she was very kind of calm and collected, um, almost entirely throughout, soft spoken. And I think it was really the prosecution's, you know, aim to show some of these really graphic photos, um, to hit home just what Cassie went through. So the jury saw photos of Cassie with a fat lip. You know, sunglasses covering what they say were black eyes. And if you go through some of Cassy's testimony, she talks about how there were almost constant beatings. And she detailed many of those. She said, for example, if she just took, um, too long to answer Diddy, or if she, you know, just behaved the wrong way, that he would violently attack her. She described, you know, a few moments where, like, he would accuse her of talking to somebody, or, you know, trying to be in a relationship with somebody else and threatening her. I think most people know Kid Cudi, for example. Um, the rapper. [JP: Mm-hmm.] She talks about how when Diddy found out while the two of them were on a break that she was talking to Kid Cudi, that he went into an absolute rage and tried to kind of find her and get to her. And we'll get into what that resulted in a bit later. But then you also heard from [for] example the male escort, Daniel Phillip. And he talked about how he stopped being able to participate in the freak-offs because he witnessed Diddy just snap -- which shocked him -- on Cassie. He said Cassie was at her computer, and Diddy had called for-- to her from the bedroom. Daniel Phillips was on the couch. And Cassie told him, you know, just one moment, my personal information is on the computer. And Diddy, he said, threw a liquor bottle toward her and then came and grabbed her by the hair, dragged her into the bedroom, and started -- he could hear him starting to slap her and beat her and telling her, you know, 'When I tell you to come, you come right away.' [JP: Right.] We also heard from her best friend, Kerry Morgan. And she detailed incidents in Jamaica, also in Los Angeles, where she said, again, Diddy kind of... just because Cassie was taking too long in the bathroom one time, um, attacked her. And Kerry describes just, Cassie, over time, really losing her spark and, you know, just kind of almost curling up into the fetal position and shielding herself from Diddy's violence. So over a number of witnesses, we see the same picture of Cassie being very afraid and almost anticipating violence and kind of cowering to protect herself.

JP: And there are also these allegations of blackmail too, right?

NADA TAWFIK: That's right. So back to the Kid Cudi example. You know, Cassie says that Diddy, when he finally got to her that night, said that he would release videos, one on Christmas day and one shortly after that. That it would ruin her career. And that he also threatened to hurt both of them, saying it would be by somebody else's hands and he would be out of the country. She was so rattled by that threat that she put it down in an email and sent it to her mother. She also described how, you know, one incident, um, they were on a commercial flight and they had gotten into an argument, and he played one of the freak-off videos where passengers nearby on the plane could have seen. And he told her that she better behave herself [JP: Huh.] or he would release the videos. So she'd said these were constant threats, and she feared for her career. She feared for her mother finding out about these things. She said that really weighed heavily on her throughout.

JP: And I think that you alluded to this earlier, um, but she also talked about him having control over her career, as you just mentioned, but also over her, like, devices, right?

NADA TAWFIK: That's right. Cassie would say that, you know, if she upset him, a part of the way he would get back at her was to seize her her phone, her computer for periods of time. And she talked about how he would almost kind of dangle her albums and career and never really fulfill promises he made. So she was always constantly hoping her music would come out. And we heard from one of his assistants who did testify that, you know, Cassie, one day he remembered speaking to her and she was so excited for her music and her album, that she was going over the final track list. And that if -- the prosecution asked him, you, know, did that album ever come out, and he said no. And there were other conversations where the assistant said, you now, he told Cassie, why don't you just leave if you don't like this lifestyle? And she told him, you know, I can't. He controls my career. He controls my, you know, housing, car, everything.

[music]

JP: So obviously the defence in its cross-examinations of Cassie have been kind of telling a different story here, right? They're trying to paint the picture that she actually did have a lot more agency than what she's saying. Tell me a little bit more about how they're doing that.

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah, that's right. Um, the defence, the cross-examination was very uncomfortable. You know, I have to say, I've spoken to many legal experts, and they, they point out the cross-examination of Cassie wasn't overly aggressive because they don't want to turn off the jury, right? But it was very pointed in bringing up several text message communications. Some were so graphic that they spared Cassie from reading them aloud, but others they did have her read out. And some of the messages, Cassie says, you know, 'I'm always ready for a freak-off.' You know, other times, when he says, do you want to freak-off one last time, she replies, 'I don't want it to be one last time. I want it be the first time for the rest of our lives.' So the defence is trying to say, you know, look, not only was she a willing participant, but she was enthusiastic about these freak-offs, she was giving Diddy her preferences. She was the one being asked about what days to do them and providing dates. And Cassie got really frustrated on the stand with this line of questioning because she said these were just words. She said she was afraid of the consequences if she didn't keep Diddy happy. And this was the way she kept him happy, by, um, you know, answering his messages in these ways and appearing willing to do it. But she insists this was all forced and he knew she didn't like to do these.

JP: Okay. It sounds like the defence has also tried to make the case in cross-examination that uh, this was a strong woman in control of her life and that she herself could be volatile.

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah. I mean, remember, you know, the defence is having to contend with the fact that Cassie gave some very graphic and disturbing details in her testimony. In fact, she even revealed that she tried to take her own life two years ago because of traumatic flashbacks of her time with Diddy, and that her husband stopped her and she went to therapy. But what the defence have tried suggest is actually she was a very strong, capable woman. You know, they said that when Diddy met her, she had actually, even though she was young, had been in a relationship with another music producer; that she was modelling and making a quarter of a million dollars a year. So she was not in any kind of need, um, to be with Diddy, that she kind of made the choice to be with him. That she could have left any time. And I think one of the tactics they used was playing this audio of Cassie actually threatening somebody who she thought had a recording of a freak-off. And we hear Cassie threatening this person, saying, I'm going to kill you. And it was striking to hear that audio played in court. And I think, again, the defence is trying to paint this as a toxic, volatile relationship, by two individuals who were both addicted to drugs, who were both jealous and worried about infidelity in the relationship, and that this wasn't something where Diddy had full power over Cassie. That it was more of an equal relationship. So, of course, it's going to be down to who the jury believes. Do they believe Cassie, or do they believe this portrayal that the defence has put out about Diddy?

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JP: There are a couple of other significant pieces of testimony this week that we haven't really touched on. In particular, pieces that seem, if I'm understanding correctly, to be part of building that racketeering case, right? The prosecution's racketeering case. Like that security guard that you mentioned. And can you just tell me a little bit about that, and then any testimony from this week that you think was particularly relevant.

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah, so the security guard who actually responded, um, to that 2016 hotel incident where we see the CCTV footage, he spoke about how, you know, Diddy tried to offer him cash and told him 'Don't tell anyone.' And he didn't accept that. But he does detail how later, Diddy, along with employees, were able to get the hotel video, and pay a very large sum for it. So that could certainly go to the racketeering element, right. That there were people who were helping him cover up his crimes or commit these crimes. [JP: Mm-hmm.] And we also heard from David James, his former personal assistant, just about how Diddy had certain expectations. That he had, for example, a certain list of items that had to be at every hotel room he went to. So David James spoke about kind of the items that he had to have ready in those hotel rooms, spoke about how, you know, Diddy got access to drugs. And, you know, also mentioned, for example, which isn't necessarily attached to the racketeering element, but how at one point, when he did take drugs offered by Diddy, that he was, as he put it, kind of just vibing. He was affected by the drugs. And that Diddy started actually filming him at that point and saying, oh, I could use that. So a lot of detail coming from his personal assistant, um, that is really relevant to the case when we're talking about the employees that were around Diddy and how they may or may not have helped him.

JP: And just briefly, how has the defence responded in cross-examination to these kinds of allegations?

NADA TAWFIK: Look, the defense has really tried as much as they can to, um, poke holes in the witnesses' credibility or sew in a little bit of reasonable doubt. Because ultimately, remember, they just need one juror to be on their side. And so I'll bring up another one of Diddy's former employees, for example, Dawn Richard. Um, I think that was where we saw some of the most aggressive cross-examination. Because Dawn Richard said that, you know, she was an artist with Diddy on the girl group Danity Kane, and then literally in a trio with him called 'Diddy – Dirty Money.' And not only did she testify about seeing Cassie be violently abused on a number of occasions, but she said that Diddy told her to basically keep quiet about what she saw or that she could go missing. And she said she took that as a threat on her life. And the defence, first of all, went through the different interviews she had with the government, because she's had eight different interviews with the government. And at one point, um, Nicole Westmoreland, who was doing the cross-examination for the defence, said, 'You didn't tell the government until the eighth interview that Diddy told you, "You could go missing." If you felt your life was threatened, wouldn't you have remembered that and told the government that in earlier interviews? And also, you tried, years later, as early as 2020, 2021, to get back into a group with Diddy to work with him. Why would you want to be back in his life if you felt he was a threat, that he wanted to kill you?' She later, kind of on redirect from the government, said that she was trying to help out a friend. That a friend wanted to get back, but she didn't. And she said that she was processing all of these traumatic memories that were from a very long time ago, back in 2009. And so she said she was recalling as best as she could what would come up. But you just get a sense of just how the defence is really targeting every single statement by these witnesses. And sometimes they're doing that in a way that's friendlier and sometimes they are doing it in a very aggressive way as we saw with Dawn Richard.

[music]

JP: Nada, you mentioned Kid Cudi earlier, the rapper Kid Cudi, who Cassie briefly dated, was expected that he would be taking the stand Wednesday, but that's not happening. Assuming that he still does testify, what are some of the broad strokes of what we might be hearing, in addition to what you've already said?

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah, well, look, remember when Cassie's original civil complaint came out, there was this bombshell allegation that Diddy blew up Kid Cudi's car, uh, because he wanted to get back at him for starting a relationship with Cassie. And so we heard a little bit about this from Cassie, but we're going to hear more from Kid Cudi. Essentially, Cassie said that her and Diddy were broken up. It was later detailed how she met Kid Cudi, because Diddy had actually hired him to work with Cassie. But they developed a relationship, and then Cassie said they were forced to end it because they literally feared for their lives. [unclear] spoke about the threats Diddy made, the email Cassie sent to her mother. But part of this was that Diddy is alleged to have blown up Kid Cudi's car. So we're going to now hear Kid Cudi's side of all of this when he gets on the stand. And I'm certain that prosecutors are gonna want him to detail and characterize what the power dynamic was with Cassie and Diddy. Because remember, a key part of this is the power dynamic, and what prosecutors have said is there is one person who had the power in this relationship, and that was Diddy.

JP: Rolling Stone reported last week that close associates of Diddy have been reaching out to associates of President Donald Trump and trying to lay the groundwork for a pardon in the event that he is convicted. Of course, we know that Trump has pardoned other rappers in the past -- Lil Wayne, Kodak Black, as well as the founder of Death Row Records. What do we know at this point about Diddy's alleged attempts to angle for a Trump pardon?

NADA TAWFIK: Yeah, we don't have our own confirmation of that, but, you know, as you say, Donald Trump has pardoned people in the past. This is a federal case, and so as president, he does have the power to issue a pardon. And there has been some speculation that, you know, Diddy declined a plea deal that the government had offered him, that he was anxious to get through this trial. Because it's only when a trial is complete, um, that if somebody is convicted and sentenced, that, you know, the president could weigh in. So, you know, if you're Diddy, and you've seen President Trump pardon others, and we know that they have had interactions in the past -- they know each other. Um, Trump has actually spoken on his show, The Apprentice, about how, you know, in his past life, before he was president, and he was a reality star.

SOUNDCLIP

AUBREY O'DAY: I'm a very strict and focused businesswoman because working for Diddy for six years trained me to have to be perfect.

DONALD TRUMP: Working for Diddy?

AUBREY O'DAY: Absolutely.

DONALD TRUMP: I love Diddy. You know he's a good friend of mine? He's a good guy.

AUBREY O'DAY: He expects--

DONALD TRUMP: Is he a good guy?

AUBREY O'DAY: I don't want to answer that question.

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, well, I think he's a good guy. I'm gonna stick up for him.

JP: Huh.

NADA TAWFIK: And so, this could very well be a 'get out of jail' card for Diddy if he is convicted. But we, as I say, don't have any kind of, um, confirmation about whether those conversations are taking place at this moment.

JP: Okay. Nada, thank you so much for this. And I'll just say for our listeners, that in half an hour, we can really just scrape the surface of this trial. There's a lot going on here. The BBC has a podcast called, um, Diddy on Trial that regularly features you. Uh, which you can go and find if you're wanting more. It's actually really great. So thank you so much for being here.

NADA TAWFIK: Thank you. Appreciate that.

[Music: Theme]

JP: All right, that is all for today. I am Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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Diddy on trial - Transcript

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